This morning was really quite productive... We did three touristy things before Noon, of all things... it took us 9 days to get into our touristy strides ...

First up we went to this dam (G tells me it was called Aratiatia Dam), whose gates opened every day at 10, 12, 2, and 4pm, more during summer, less during winter. We got there at 9:45am, and then waited, and waited, and waited ... There were black swans, and a delicious of ducks sitting watching the proceedings from the edge of the dam, and in the water below the dam gate there were some fish swimming about, oblivious to what was going to happen next. In the water, there was also a mailbox, some old signs, and the plastic wrapper to some bread product of no description. Sirens sounded at 10 minutes, 5 minutes, and time to let the floodgates open, but the fish ignored these, much to their detriment ... I'm not quite sure where they ended up when the gates opened and a massive gush of water ran down the river thingy. The gates were kept open for 30 minutes at a go, and we had much freaky blue moving water to watch again.

We then went to Huka Falls, where we took a walk around and saw ridiculously blue water again. The guidesigns around the place explained this freaky blue water by saying that it was really really clear water having sunlight bounce off it a particular way... The actual falls don't fall that much, but there is a lot of water falling ... because of the way the land underneath the water lies, there's a massive current backwards into the falls underneath the upper layer of water. In the 1930s to 1950s the Huka falls was used to power a hydro-electric power station for one of the hotels. Anyways, we were ready to leave, Lumpy saw a big-arse rooster (his own words), strutting about in dappled shade, which made for a lot of the big-arse rooster going, "cock-a-doodle-looooo!", each time he moved out of the shade.

Next up we went to craters of the moon, which are these cratery things on the ground that are caused by hot springs under the ground, and gassy things rising up from under the ground ... I don't know that I'd describe the smell as farty, but definitely very sulphury. It was all very weird with steam escaping the ground because there wasn't anywhere else it could go, making the air around us hot and cold in patches. M34tb4LL bought a bunch of pens (to add to the other bunches of pens that had already been purchased up to this point) for his work, and a can of hot coffee that was marked to be stored in a cool dry place, and that was apparently best served chilled... explains why it was served heated, doesn't it? *grin*

Then we went to Thermal Wonderland, where we were about due to break out Gary for some lunchtime sustenance. Some birds joined in for the fun and feasting, due to some errant banana ending up on the ground. We paid our entry fee (20.00, for those of you who wanted to know), got our walking guidesheet, and wandered around looking at really strangely coloured things caused by these geothermal eruptions ... we now know where highlighter fluid comes from - the Devil's Bath. We wandered about, walked through a re-planted forest that had a tree that decided to grow leaves in the middle of its height, rather than at the top.

Nevermind, we eventually made it to Rotorua, where M34tb4LL and Guru G went off in search of blank digital video tapes, Decay and Droidy went off to look for where we needed to meet up with the Tamaki Village people for the Hangi later in the evening, and I'm not sure what the rest of us did. We did try to get to a gondola and luge place in Rotorua, and then we tried to see if we had time to meet a real live kiwi, but there's not much you can do in 45 minutes... really. We checked in to take the bus to visit Tamaki Village, and then we met Dennis, our bus driver for the evening. As we were driving to Tamaki Village, we were regaled with stories, and about the schedule of events for the evening. There needed to be a chief chosen to represent our bus, and somehow, Decay either volunteered, or was volunteered by Guru G. *grin* He was told to scoot to the front of the bus, shown the traditional greeting of nose touching, and then the bus was parked. There were 4 other buses as well, each with their chosen chiefs, who were all told to wait in the front of the group to be welcomed in. Traditionally, women weren't allowed to be in the front line of the group, because it was the men's job to protect the women of the tribe. I don't know whether everyone was told/listened to this part of the bus presentation, it mostly meant that Droidy being the short person didn't get to see much of what was going on ... shall await the video evidence as taken by Guru G and M34tb4LL...

Watching the welcoming ceremony and peace offering was interesting. I found it weird that they had to stress so much that people were not supposed to laugh, or smile, or poke their tongues out, maybe because that's what I would have assumed. Formal ceremonies aren't typically things that you're meant to laugh or poke fun at. Nevermind, Decay did his chiefly thing by keeping eye contact with the welcoming warrior, and successfully accepted the peace offering without offending the masses and causing riot. The head woman of the tribe sang out as well, and then we were ushered in to witness the happenings of a pre-western-contact Maori tribe.

We were then taken to the village meeting house (I forget the maori word for this), where we were witness to performances with the bally things on strings (poi?), singing, a stick throwing and catching song and dance which was supposed to aid in developing hand-eye coordination, lots of singing, with, and without guitar accompaniment, and explanations of traditional weaponry and tools. There was also a haka chant, which wasn't the same as the one that the all-blacks do before their rubgy games, apparently somewhere in the audience someone said, this isn't the haka at all ... or something.

And then there was food. All the food was prepared in a traditional Hangi, which involves a bunch of really hot rocks put into a hole in the ground, on top of which go the meats, vegies, and other food items that require cooking, to be covered by wet cloth, and then the dirt that was dug out to make the hole in the ground. This pile of stuff was left to cook for a long time (3-4 hours?), to provide meltingly cooked meat and tasty vegies. We ate, buffet style, Decay and Grumbler drank something they called tamaki fruit punch, but Decay identified as Pina Colada mix.

Eventually, the night had to end (after all, this was sitting 1 of three for the night, and sitting 2 were about to enter the other dining room as we were finishing up), the farewelling ceremony proceeded, and the chiefs of each of the buses that came in were presented with a small gift to thank them for their cooperation and good spirit in taking part. We then had a three hour drive to Auckland to look forward to ...

Where we had some lively discussion. Well, some of us did, others tried sleeping, yet others sat out of the discussion. I tried playing gameboy but I was stuck on what to do next so that got given up a bit quickly (: There were a couple of pitstops for smoke breaks, and standing around being perplexed about what Tirau Homekills offered. We arrived at our hotel just before 1am, and after checking in and moving our luggage to our rooms, we crashed into bed, looking forward to a relative sleep-in the next day.