Kia Ora! This means welcome and how are you so had to say this a lot during my trip to the mauri village.

Our bus driver Wallace picked us up at 7pm and took us on the 20 minute bus journey to the mauri village just outside Rotorua. Wallace taught us lots of mauri sayings (I can only remember Kia Ora, aye meaning yes and paki paki meaning clap) on the bus we had to decide who was going to be chief of our bus. There were 12 of us staying in a dorm room 11 girls and 1 boy Shane so when it came to choosing the chief Shane was nominated very quickly with a chant of Shane Shane Shane Shane so he had no choice really! The bus driver told him what he would be expecting and we arrived at the village.

By this point it was chucking it down and we got ushered in to where the three chiefs had to stand in a circle and the evening started. The mauri men came out and did haka moves and showed their weapons and the chiefs had to greet them. From there we made our way to the mauri village where we were split into smaller groups and saw the village men and women making clothes, playing traditional games, doing the haka and fighting with weapons. It was really cool apart from getting splattered with massive rain drops as the rain came through the trees. We watched our food being brought up from the underground ovens and then watched a show of traditional haka, dancing and singing. At the end we were taken through to massive dining rooms where we had a feast! Vegetables, meat, fish, stuffing and loads of desert, by far the best meal I've had out here. As the food was cooked in underground ovens it has a really earthy taste to it and it was delicious.

We were then taken home on the bus and eh bus driver asked our chief Shane to lead us in songs. Shane made each nationality sin their national anthem, as there was only one Russian, one German, one Irish, 4 Australians, us 30ish English smashed it out the water! It was a really fun night.

Went straight to bed but had the next day in roturua so could have a bit of a lie in. My bed was about three metres from a nightclub though so was difficult to get to sleep...the joys of hostel living :)