Sulphur City, Fartopolis
Trip Start
Dec 14, 2007
1
48
187
Trip End
Mar 16, 2009
Rotorua,
New Zealand
Monday, March 10, 2008
Many of the more active areas cost about NZ$20 just to enter but the public park in town has many bubbling mud pools and a steaming lake. It was quite a site to see and make you wonder what's happening below our feet.
Rotorua is also a culture rich Maori centre so to get a better understanding of the Maori culture and rituals we booked an evening at a Maori village. It was quite an experience as I've always pictured the Maoris as a fearsome warrior race and large part of the show was explaining why they were this way. The evening started with Maori warriors paddling up a river in a traditional war canoe chanting war songs. We then went into the main meeting hall and witnessed the traditional tribal greeting which is an war dance which spears being swung around with hissing and grunting sounds being made all in an attempt to intimidate the visitor. We got to see many of the tribes traditional dances and got to see their haka. A great evening all together and well worth seeing.
Rotorua is also famous for something called Zorbing which simply is rolling down a big grass hill in a huge inflated ball. The morning we left town we stopped in to see what all the fuss was about. It looked like great fun as can be seen on the video clip but for NZ$40 (R240) we decided we would be happy as spectators and decided to rather invest the money in a few good Kiwi wines. Mind you if you clamp you ankles around your neck and toll down a hill you'll get the same feeling for free.
