Matariki 2022: The Mãori New Year

It was a great day of skiing with a blue sky and good slopes. Julius and Quinten feel confident on skies and both go up the mountain with the chairlift. In the morning they had ski lessons, and in the afternoon we skied together. Guido and me swopped our snowboard for skies, that's a little easier with the kids, and fun too!

After coming back from skiing we drive to Wanaka, to celebrate Matariki, Mãori new year, which has always been celebrated with the rise of the star cluster Matariki.The kids had a ball playing with giant soapbubbles, and after that, a the tradition goes, the whole community, including us, ate 'Hãngï. Hāngī is a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven (umu). Our Hãngï had lamb, chicken and vegetables such as potato, kūmara (sweet potato), yams (oca), carrot and cabbage. We sat near the lake, and although they had some big fires going, it was pretty cold (happy we had our ski clothes still on!) and the hot food tasted therefore nice. When it was dark finally at 06:30 (Quinten was asking the time for 45 min. every minute) we enjoyed a great firework!!! Wauw! Happy Matariki!Read more