Today we drove down to Rotorua where we stayed in the nice Youth Hostel there. Me and Rosie took a walk around the edge of the city and the edge of the lake, and saw some cool hot water spring and hot mud springs and geysers. There are clouds of sulphurous smoke all over the city from where the mud just comes bubbling up out of the ground!
The next day we went to Te Puia Maori village, whre there are Maori huts to see, some big geysers which shoot water up into the air, and of course lots more smelly bubbling mud pools. There was also a little mini zoo which had some of NZ's national bird in, a Kiwi. We had to go into a darkened room to see some of these slow, docile, flightless birds which dont defend themselves and therefore get killed and eaten by pretty much any other animal that wants to. They are quite rare now so it was cool to see them!
In the evening we went to a Maori cultural evening. They rowed a canoe around in the woods, performed their Haka kinda like the All Blacks do (though not the same one as the All Blacks. All tribes in NZ have their own personal war dance called a Haka, and the All Blacks perform one called the Haka Ka Mate Ka Mate) We also had a big meal of meat and vegetables cooked underground in a hole with hot stones, exactly like the Fijians do. In Fiji it is called a Lovo and in Maori it is a Hangi.
I also swam in the hot spring water which was great on a not very warm day. as you can probably tell by the name it was very hot!!
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