Better Than Brioche (or Cake)!

The bus journey to Rotorua took most of the day. We had included Rotorua in our New Zealand itinerary as it is billed as the place for maoritanga, Maori culture, and we were to stay there for three nights since, after feeling rushed in China, I thought this was the minimum necessary for a town; for scenery I felt it was OK to swoop in, take photos and leave again, after all we had only three weeks for the whole country. Rotorua and the nearby Bay of Plenty is where most of the Maoris have lived since settling on the North Island, and I wanted to learn more – and maybe meet some Maoris.

Surely an Uphall is all that's required

On the way, the bus stopped at a small place for lunch, where a sign greatly amused me: it was for a probus club, the word probus being defined, I thought, in The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff ), the text of which can be found here: http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html. A little research has revealed that it does not feature there, but it was probably the Official Supplement to the Meaning of Liff and a clue to the meaning may be found here, where there is a small excerpt: http://www.2000ad.org/oscar/liff.htm.

By that evening we had accepted that we were not going to be able to afford to eat in restaurants or drink in bars. It was the supermarket for us. For the first time since leaving South Africa the supermarkets were almost like home: we were enjoying drinking red wine and good coffee, and eating wholemeal bread, pasta, cheese, spicy food, and cold meats. Meat, particularly beef, seemed very cheap compared to Scotland, whereas I had expected lamb to be the cheapest; maybe they export enough to keep the prices up. Vegetables were very expensive though. Oh well, let them eat steak! It was also nice to have the opportunity to cook for ourselves again: hostels and guesthouses in Asia don't have kitchens. At the same time it would have been nice to go out too, but New Zealand is just too expensive. At least hardly anyone in New Zealand smokes and it's banned in commercial buildings, which was a nice change after China.

Another, not so welcome, change we were starting to realise was not just an aberration is that beds in New Zealand are disgustingly soft. We like a firm bed anyway, but months in Asia had got us used to the firmness of futons or tatami. We hadn't slept very well so far on the marshmallows they call mattresses, and we were developing lots of joint and muscle aches and pains.

Also, I had been hoping to get some peace and quiet in New Zealand after the constant racket of Asia. I was viewing New Zealand as a bit of a break from travel, really, a rest between difficult continents, a home antipodally away from home, and it did feel quite like that. Since I expected it to be much like home, I wasn't expecting much interesting culturally out of New Zealand, with the exception of maoritanga; I was mostly here for the fantastic scenery everyone raves about. But I did also expect some peace. Unfortunately, New Zealanders and the people who travel there all seem to be addicted to television. We had hardly seen any TV for all the months we had been in Asia and I had not missed it one bit, but now that we were back in Western culture, we were constantly subjected to this, one of its greatest diseases.

We spent out first full day in Rotorua walking about town. Other than maoritanga, Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity. And the smell of rotten egg. Actually the smell wasn't as bad as I had been led to believe, but I did keep thinking I had ham and egg sandwiches in my rucksack.

Black swan on the sulphurous lake

More black birds

First we took the walk in the Government Gardens, past some Victorian bath houses, and along next to Lake Rotorua. We gave the hot baths a miss since we had done that in Japan. On the bank of the lake there was some bubbling mud and steaming pools. It was pleasant enough, but not exactly exciting or beautiful. Apart from the geothermal stuff it could have been a flat bit of Scotland or a hilly bit of England; again the cold probably helped this impression, but at least it wasn't raining here.

Bubbly mud next to the lake

Detail on Maori church

The lakeside walk passed a Maori war boat on display then ended at Ohinemutu, the city's original Maori village. There is a lovely ornately carved church, but not much else, certainly nothing else particularly Maori, so I was a bit let down. We were in Rotorua for maoritanga and this was the Maori village but, aside from the church, it was just a modern housing estate, except that most of the houses had steam coming streaming out of little chimneys presumably coming from the hot spas they each had indoors, and some had bubbling pools in their gardens. Where were the Maoris? In fact, where was anybody? If you're not near a television New Zealand is really quiet, in fact it's empty: 4.3 million people in a country bigger than Britain feels quite lonely after Asia!

Maori church

All that really remained to see was Kuirau Park which is the main hotspot in town, so we walked around steaming ponds and saw some more bubbling mud, which all created a nice spooky atmosphere. And eggy. So that was it: Rotorua in a morning and, although there were more Maoris walking in the street than Auckland or Paihia, I didn't really feel we had connected with the Maori soul. There was nothing for it: we had to book a tour. Generally opposed to tours and hardly believing that it would be an authentic experience, we had barely read the leaflets but, since we were there for Maoris and saw no other place to find Maori culture, shelled out more than we could afford and booked a Maori experience evening for the next night.

Steaming pool in the park

Somehow very Calvinistic view of a pool in the park

written by

The Happy Couple on August 18, 2009 from Rotorua, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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