Our first stop of the day was in a place called 'Te Puia' home to the local geyser. There are very few around the world and this is one of those few.
Around this geyser they built some kind of arts school about the Maori culture and they show you different aspects of their lives.
This is also the place were I saw a real life kiwi (the bird) for the first time. :-)
First we went to the carving school.
Apparently Maori carvings are packed with meaning and those with the right knowledge can read them like books. Through carving Maori convey history moral values and honour ancestors. Different tribes around NZ have developed different styles and some people can tell from which part of the country a carving comes from by just looking at it.
Second was the school of weaving
Weaving has some specialities cloak weaving baketry mats and others
Then we moved on to see the volcanic area
According to the nearby inscription the below clay is formed by the acidic breakdown of rocks and soil from steam and gase and contains small quantities of black sulphur.
Then we went to a whole on the ground where there was boiling water coming out of it...and our guide boiled a few eggs for us :-)
some more mud pools
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and then we got to the geyser area
the shadow at the bottom right it's yours trully the big thing on the background is the geyser.
more video and pictures from the area
Right after that it was KIWI time!!!
as you can see from the picture above photography and video were not allowed. Kiwis are nocturnal and don't do well with flashes and noises... what they did in this place was to trick the bird by encasing them in a noiseless dark room we could see them but the birds couldn't see us...
This is what they look like
After that we went to visit the Huka Falls they say you can fill 7 olympic swimming pools per second with the amount of water flowing through... and I believe that... there was so much water and it was flowing so fast...
And finally made it to Taupo where I spent the night in a nice quiet lodge that had a cool vibe about it...
I know the name can be misleading... just a normal lodge though...
As tomorrow I am doing the famous Tongariro crossing I went to bed relatively early in preparation for the 05:00 am call.
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