And so my kiwi adventure truely begins! My home... The big green bus, my family... Ele, jade, chris and dave, my motto for this leg of the trip... SWEET AS!
Getting on the bus in the morning I got major de ja vu from oz, which is kinda to be expected since it's basically the same deal as before, and that feeling when you get on and everyone is just silent because they don't know each other yet and no one wants to becthw first to speak... Well, that just makes me laugh now coz i know that with either a drop of alcahol or a cup of tea, everyone will be chatting like there's no tomorrow! And I was right! Within fifteen minutes we were in a cafe chatting away and by that evening after settling in at mecury bay, our hometown for the night, we all cooked chili together and had a good old bonding session over chopped carrots and grated cheese - both of which I ate ridiculous amounts of before dinner was even served :p and what did we do with the leftovers I hear you ask? Well we let gareth tuck into them of course! Gareth bless him was late thirties and slightly umm special I think is the best way to put it and he didn't buy any food for himself that night and couldn't understand where everyone else was getting thiers from - I think he was a bit autistic but either way we couldn't let him starve... I mean we would have if we had been hungrier but we made a LOT of chili so there was plenty for him to nab afterwards... As long as he did the washing up :p
So what did I learn from my first night? Umm kiwi's like pies, we have a s***e grumpy driver called, funnily enough, grumpy pete, and if things keep going this way, I'm gonna have one hell of a good time in new Zealand :p
The next day, ie today, we arrived in rotorura - the Maori cultural capital and geothermal activity centre of new Zealand. All around us were hot pools and steaming springs and boiling mud bubbling away, oh and it stank by the way!! Obviously with geothermal activity comes sulphar, and sulphur smells like s***. Hence the whole of rotorura smells like s***. Apparently you get used to it... Apparently. It also rained, all day, and not just the nice kind of rain, this was terrential, biblical rain that you didn't dare venture out in - unless your names are chris and ele who went for a guided tour of the hot pool park or dave who went White water rafting, but to be fair he was going to get wet anyway! Me, jade and our newly found Danish cousins Anne and Camilla :p however decided the best course of action was to go for a dip in the hostels outdoor swimming pool. The hostels outdoor boiling hot heated swimming pool that made the ice cold rain nothing more than a nice cool refreshment for whatever skin you couldn't hide under the water :p my god it was glorious! And as we all decided, the only thing missing was a hunky man in speedo's on a spinning pedestal in the middle pouring out champagne... Oh and cake but that was just me :p
The evening had a lot more in store for us, me chris ele jade dave and gareth ( who decided last minute to take advantage of the buffet dinner that was included in the price of the evening) went on a Maori tribal adventure where they took us to the local villiage and showed us some of thier culture. It really was just immense! First call on the bus was to pick a chief for the evening and after I had lovingly suggested chris, it was time for his briefing... Basically when we arrived a warrier from the taomaki tribe that we were visiting would approach us at the gates and offer a peace twig whilst doing a funny yet terrifying dance complete with thigh slaps, grunts and eye bulging. Chris then had to pick up the twig in a peaceful type way and we would be invited in - the important thing was not to laugh! No one was allowed to even smile because it would offend them and as some guy apparently discovered a couple years back, when the taomaki are offended, they tend to Headbutt you. Hard. So after all that we were welcomed in by the women of the tribe with a song and slowly shown round the replica of how a village used to look that they had created for us, including the weapons they used and how they were made, how they trained, how they tattooed each other (everyone had facial and other tattoos - the women especially with little goatee like patterns on thier chins) and finally how they cooked - by placing the meat and vegetables underground and basically smoking them for 8 hours or longer! Next came the show. Songs and dances with spears and balls on string and guitars etc that were all traditional to them and it really was quite impresssive, very beautiful music too :) chris then got his chance to do his chiefly duty and thank the tribe on stage in front of everyone... He loved it really :p after the show, came the food. And my god do they put on a good spread! There was lamb and steak and chicken and fish and mussels and potatoe and sweet potatoe and carrots and peas and bread and soup and sauces and other random veg and then there was pavlova and sponge cake with custard for dessert too!! Plus it was a buffet so you could just keep going back for more! It was immense! I definitly got my moneys worth in dessert and lamb alone - Sarah, you would be proud of me! By the time we all finished and it was time to go we were physically uncomfortably full, like in pain, but it was soooooo worth it :p plus chris got given a little necklace for being chief so he was happy :) the bus ride home however was dominated by a group of obnoxious holidaying ozzy's who, for people with such bad voices they should never sing kareoke sang way too much kareoke! All together though it was a fantastic evening even with all the rain and definitly worth the money (just the food alone was worth that!) so by the time I had finished about 8 games of pool and beaten the Danish girls about 7 times :p I was a tres happy camper :p
Xxx