Bubbling mud, kayak and haka

Awoke and admired the view from bed: lake and giant ferns…..We headed for town to collect tickets for the Te Puia show later on. Stopped in at internet café to upload the blog and wandered round the CBD. Had car-nic by the lake. Baking sun and decided to head back and check out the mud-pool spa near home. Back home, A-lo had a snooze whilst I prepared the afternoon activity: a kayak trip to a thermal pool. Graham had told us about a little spa, only accessible by boat. 30 mins paddle away. Bearing in mind Annelise had never been in a kayak until this trip, and this was her first experience of paddling her own canoe, she bravely agreed to give it a go. There was a condition: she insisted that a length of rope was attached from the stern of my boat to the bow of hers.

We (mostly Royal) paddled down the lake and beached our boats on the shore. The water was piping hot where the spring reached the lake. 4 ageing concrete pools made up the spa, with a little waterfall taking the water from one pool to the next, before finally leaving for the lake. Being accessible by boat only, it was being used by a large family and 2 lots of water-skiers only. Chatted politely…….

When we left, all eyes were on the "athletic couple" who paddled had paddled over. We were waved off with great amusement as the tug boat strained to gather momentum…Closer to home, we rafted up a few hundred meters from base and drifted in on the wind. Perfect end to the afternoon.

That evening we went to a Maori cultural evening. The tourist tribe lined up and Jim (ageing grey granddad type) was somehow selected to be our leader. Out came a ferocious young gentleman, tattoos on his face and a spear to hand. After a truly theatrical display of spear jabbing, tongue sticking out and muscle flexing Jim picked up a leaf and we were allowed to enter. The show was much better than we expected with good spirited singing, stick games and a terrifying haka. The women joined in the haka and there was lots of tongue sticking out, bulging eyes and so on from the warrior babes.

After dinner we went to the geyser next door. Bang on cue it erupted, sending a jet of water 100' into the air. The steam was lit up all around and the whole scene was quite amazing and spiritual. Our guides sang a beautiful Maori love song, said a prayer and then we headed to the pub.