A bit of a disappointing evening

We set off reasonably early this morning to begin our busy day of doing things at Te Puia, a geothermal site that has the tallest geyser in the southern hemisphere. When we arrived we found out that they run free guided tours on the hour and it just so happened the next one was only in 10 minutes time so we decided to get on board with that. We were in a small group of 8 and were shown around by a Maori woman who lives in the village next to this area. It turns out her tribe have been taking visitors to the geysers and hot pools for decades and now that it has been turned into a real attraction her family and people still continue to run and own the site which I quite liked. She was very informative about the history of this area and the traditions and beliefs of her tribe. It felt like an authentic experience that couldn't of been explained better by anyone else. She showed us around a school they have on site where the students take a course to learn the traditional art of jade/bone/sandstone carving, wood carving or weaving. As we walked around we were on a high up walkway looking down into the studios and the students working. It did feel a little as if they were animals in a zoo being observed. One man who was once a student at the school is still coming here 50 years on. It seems a great place to learn Maori art techniques and what was even more great is seeing how many students there were not from a Maori background. It showed that many people do have an interest in the history of this beautiful country and It's first people. What was also great about the guided tour is she knew exactly when the geyser was looking like it would erupt so we headed over there as soon as she got word on the radio. There's actually two geysers connected here. The one on the left will start to go for about 10-20 minutes before the large one erupts. It's a pretty good indicator of when to expect an eruption and they know it happens every 1.5 to 2 hours. The water and steam that shot out of it was incredible to see and it went so high into the air. It can reach 30m high but I'm unsure if we got to see it at this height. We ended our tour at the kiwi house where we saw 3 birds because it just so happened to be feeding time. After the tour we explored the rest of the park and watched another eruption of Pohutu the geyser before heading back to the campsite. We were picked up at 4:45pm to go on our Maori experience evening at the Matai village. Initially we had high hopes for the evening as we were in a minibus of only 8 people but when we arrived and were escorted into a tent of 140 people all sat at dining tables we were instantly disappointed. We had no idea how large the group would be and even when we were split into two groups you were still with 70 people walking around. We spent about 45 minutes just sat waiting for things to start and then listening to our host go through every single country in the world that people could be from. Two people he knew from the USA were there so they instantly were his favourites. As we walked in a group of 70 down to the river to see warriors paddle in a waka canoe boat he only talked to his friends and also took them straight to the best viewing spot. It was like the other 68 of us didn't exist. Our food was cooked traditionally in the ground by the geothermic steam which was rather cool but we didn't sit down to eat until very late. We watched a cultural show first which demonstrated traditional songs, instruments and the haka dance. That was the saving grace of the evening because it was very interesting to see. We had our buffet dinner which was meant to be traditional Maori food but I'm pretty sure they didn't have pavlova or chocolate log back in the day. We then went on a bush walk in a group of about 30 with a girl who looked about 15 as our guide. All we were shown was glow worms and a couple of replica huts. She talked about the glow worms by saying "here folks we have the glow worm who is an egg, no worm doing its thing for 5 days and then it umm dies". The natural spring they have on site apparently gets here from the river by "some sciencey stuff and then there's the spring". It was laughable really and that was it we were back in the mini bus going home wondering what $90 was spent on. All we know is they are making a real killing here if everyone pays $90. I'm glad we got to see some Maori dances and performances but it was definitely nothing to write home about. Oh well tomorrow is another day and we can just put this down as a learning curve to always ask how big the groups are before booking!Read more