Cultural Day in Rotorua, New Zealand

We made the two hour drive from Waitomo to Rotorua late in the morning. The drive was beautiful. Rolling hills, sheep, puffy clouds, and perfect weather. 

We stopped briefly in a town called Tirau for lunch. It was so small If we blinked we would have missed it. For whatever reason everything in this tiny town was made of corrugated metal...and i mean EVERYTHING! 

We got to Rotorua and checked into the Princes Gate Hotel. The guy in the lobby told us that sometime in the 1920s, they picked this hotel up and moved it 93 miles! Can you imagine?!?

The place was built in 1897 and has a delightful antique decor with all the rooms named after important Rotoruans. We are in the Don Stafford room who was apparently the town historian.

Today we spent the day learning about Maori culture. We started at the Rotorua Museum which is housed in an old bath house.

Back in the day people used to come here from all over for "the cure" to their ailments. The water from the stinky springs is said to have healing properties. Maybe so...if you could get past the fact that it smells like a rotten egg.

Oh, did i forget to mention, the whole town stinks of rotten eggs? An unfortunate side effect of being situated on top of a bunch of very sulphuric geothermic springs. You get used to it though.

Inside the museum was a wing dedicated to Maori history which was fascinating but we couldn't take any pictures. 

There was also a cool exhibit about rugby players who had to go off to WWI

And a tea towel collection from a famous chef. 

We dug this place. It was the perfect way to orient ourselves with the local culture.

Next we went to a traditional Maori Village called Tamaki for dinner and a cultural show. It would be the NZ equivalent of a luau.

We learned about their music, weaving, tattoos, battle training, and they even showed Helmut how to do the Haka!

Then they showed us how the Haka is REALLY done. These guys don't mess around!

Then we ate some food they prepared in the ground in a traditional hangi. It was a bit touristy but since we had no way to experience such things otherwise, we didn't mind. They did a good job of explaining Maori culture and the food was decent.

We have  one more day here and were gonna make the most of it! Lots of interesting pictures should be coming up!