WEEK THIRTY THREE, MAORI, MUSIC, MOVIES
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2007
1
33
44
Trip End
Jan 16, 2008
Auckland,
North Island,
New Zealand
Thursday, November 1, 2007
This trip with Claire was amazing but the best was yet to come. Getting up at sunrise to do some yoga on yet another deserted beach to stretch our compressed bodies from another night of sleeping in a car the size of a tin of tuna was getting to be quite fun! We were heading North and stopped in the tourist town of Pihia and looked for somewhere to park up for the night. We came across some caravans and asked the owners if we could park up beside them! It was a lovely little spot on the grass beside the water in front of an old wooden tall sailing ship. The people who were all ready there invited us over to sit with them. It was pitch black but once we got out we noticed that these guys all 20 or so of them were Maori with the full on Moko, the facial tattoos, including the women! So that meant that they were pretty high up the family ranks and very important people! Turns out that this weekend was a very special weekend for the Maori people as they had discovered something about their Sovereignty and common laws of the land and a whole weekend of activity, protests, events and discovery was happening! It was a very cool time for us to be there. They welcomed us to their family, sang us their tribal sacred songs, made us tea and coffee and insisted that we share the tent with them and not cram ourselves in to the car again. It was a full moon so the moon beams were dancing off the lapping waters beside us and me and Claire were sitting on the grass wrapped up in a huge hand woven throw listening to the amazing stories and heartfelt songs being told by the head couple of a very powerful well know Maori family. Myself and Claire were blown away. Tears were rolling down our cheeks and we were so moved. We really were touched, we can't explain how or why but we both felt something stir up deep inside us. A deep combination of the surroundings, situation, and hospitality, it was something that nobody will find in a guide book and very VERY few people ever get a chance to experience. We felt so blessed. We then went to sleep in this tent that had about 30 mattresses laid out in it and we felt so safe and secure and had the best nights sleep in a long time.
When we woke however it was very comical, I was wrapped around Claire, much to her amusement, but it wasn't until she looked over to my right to see a huge Maori man snoring away snuggled tight beside me!! We then noticed that the whole tent was full to the brim, very cosy indeed! We didn't care that it was only 4.30 am!!! We had been invited to a scared healing ceremony that hadn't been performed in hundreds of years but this was the first time they could do it again in the waters of their people under the full moon! We were so SO honoured and excited to be invited and excepted to take part in this historical moment. So we walked into the waters by the moonlight and tried not to notice how feckin cold it was!!!! The grandfather of the family then lit a fire on the beach and performed sacred Maori prayers, blessings and chants in the original Maori language. We didn't understand what he was saying but we could sense his feelings and emotion and full got it all!
Standing in the water the sand felt like silk rushing through my toes when the freezing waves ebbed back to the water. But as soon as I was being healed and cleansed the water suddenly felt warm and the cold was no longer and issue, in fact it was really pleasant! So there we are, myself and Claire, two white chicks up to our knees in the sea dripping with water from our heads and hands from where we had been cleansed with about 20 Maori family members under the cover of moon and fire light, we couldn't believe what was happening! We kept looking at each other in disbelief! How did we get here and how would we ever be able to tell people about it and do the whole situation justice? We realised that we couldn't so we decided to forget trying to remember everything and just go with the flow and enjoy the whole magical experience.
After we were all healed and another ritual blessing was performed we all gathered around the fire to be welcomed and say a few words. This was when myself and Claire were officially welcomed in to the family and asked to be ambassadors for the family and their rights, beliefs and cause! We were floored and honoured. We could barely speak when we were asked to say a few words but we both knew we felt the same about the whole situation. We stayed there on that beach listening and watching this amazing group pf people celebrate their history and culture with true feeling and understanding of where they had come from, where they are and where they were hopefully going, all whilst the most stunning sunrise crept in to the sky behind us!
After that we were emotionally drained and need some coffee to bring us back to earth. So we said our goodbyes for now and head to reflect and take all in what we had just witnessed! It took a while, and it still hasn't really sunk in yet! We had also booked a sailing trip our into the Bay of Islands on a beautiful 40 foot sailing ship! It was a glorious sunny hot day as we took to the water and sailed our way around the beautiful bay. We were the only two one this ship apart from the Captain and Skipper, could this trip get any better? Well, yes, it did, we found a deserted Island and moored up and went exploring and had the stuff that dreams and movies are made of, a yacht to ourselves, a deserted island, golden sands, crystal clear warm sea and great company and conversation! The most perfect day ever, well, it was, until the sunburn set in and we had to drive for so long to get to our next destination!! To compensate and to cap the best day ever off we splashed out and stayed the night in a campsite and booked a room, and boy did we need it!
The next day we drove for what seemed like hours and hours and miles and miles in the blistering heat! We headed North to the very tip of New Zealand Cape Reinga, were the Tasman Sea and Southern Ocean collided together in a violent clash of colours and waves. We also headed to the Silica Sands beach, supposedly the purest and whitest sand anywhere in the world! It was blinding! It felt like flour under our feet and yet again it was totally deserted! Amazing! Then we went to the giant sand dunes to do some sand surfing but, alas, I was way to sunburnt to do it, so I watched Claire started the 30min climb to the top of the dunes, before she disappeared in to the heat waves like a mirage! An hour later I heard the screams before I saw her slid down at breakneck speed and plow head first in to the hot golden sands! Comical!
That night we slept in a Macadamia nut orchard but the tight owners had no beds left and charged us to park up and sleep in our own car, so in the morning to make our money back i got a big bag and climbed a fence whilst Claire sat in the car engine on ready to go as I shook the trees and collected as many nuts as possible! They are so expensive over here and we must have got about $50 worth of nuts! But typically we had no nut cracker so they were left to collect dust in the boot!
Hitting the road again we got lost and ended us driving for two hours yet only got 45kms from where we started! But we did manage to go to the Kauri Forest and see the oldest and biggest Kauri trees in the world, and boy are these impressive!! Nature really does take your breath away and make you stop and think and these trees make you do that more than most other things I have seen! So were headed back to say goodbye to our new Maori family and watched some of them fish for Red Snapper and show us how to gut them alive! I'm a crap vegan! We then watched the giant sting ray swim up to our feet as we watched another beautiful sunset before heading off on our next adventure to TukaTuka to meet someone called KC who we were going to go work on his land for a few days to learn about organic farming and to learn how to surf!
So we didn't know if KC was a guy or a girl, all we had was a text saying he was in a band and they were playing a gig and we were to meet KC there! I was hoping he was a hot Maori version of Jack Johnson! But then reality set in as we met KC, a skinny white middle aged man in tight light 80's blue jeans, bald head yet very long ponytail at the back! As if that wasn't bad enough they were playing Jazz! I hate Jazz, but not only that, it was acid jazz, psychedelic shite!! I was in agony, my ears were bleeding. We sat the whole gig outside in our car thinking of ways of escape but it was too late! After what seems like an eternity of pure noise KC found us and we headed back to his brothers house! Two girls heading back to a house in the middle of nowhere with 3 grown jazz loving hippies wasn't the most clever thing to do looking back on it but I guess being on the road for so long makes you do stupid things! After listening to there crap music for hours we then had to listen to their even worse bullshit talk!
The next morning they were still shitting out of them but what was worse they made us watch last nights gig on DVD!!! Will this nightmare ever end!? Well, yes it did, when they started telling us how it was military planes that crashed in to the twin towers on 9/11! That is when I saw Claire's face and knew it was time to go. So we said we were going to get breakfast and we would meet them in the cafe down the road. But, surprisingly, we took and wrong turn and never made it too the cafe, in fact we made it as far away from those eejets in record time!!
The next day we just wanted to do something normal so we headed back to Auckland, hit the retail park, did some shopping then went to the cinema to see the movie Atonement, what a mistake that was, pure crap! Then we headed to the airport, splashed out on a motel and had a lovely last night of road trip adventure sleep!
The next day Claire boarded the plane back to the states and I wondered if I would ever see her again. It is bizarre to get so close to someone so quickly, to share so many cool amazing experiences and adventures and find someone who is so like me and has the same background, morals and beliefs as me and upbringing and think that it might be the last time you see them in person. Hopefully it won't as I don't think I will ever find someone who will sing Catholic hymns in a rental car whist being lost in the backwater townships of Maori filled New Zealand! What an amazing road trip!
