Te Puia, Māori Arts & Crafts Institute, with a side of Thermal Wonder

Geothermal Valley in Te Puia

This evening's fun started with a van ride to pick up other participants. Everyone was eager for our tour of Te Puia, and our driver was a hoot. There was a young woman from Chile with her Mom. The she translated for her Mom who was - like Ila and me - monolingual. We chatted with them on and off all night.

Arriving at the center our driver gave us the lo down on what we had to look forward to.

The map gives a good idea of the size of the facilities and its land

All started with a walking tour.  For a laugh, we were given a go at pronouncing the word on the sign below... For a second I thought we were in Wales, visiting Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

We visited the beautiful & exquisitely carved Maori food storage structure, and we were allowed to climb underneath to see where food was stored.

Loosely speaking, this is a Maori
Tupperware Container. Really!

Our guide was a wonderful young woman who has many relatives that also work and make art at the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. There they work at indoctrinating their youth so the old arts and ways of producing art do not fall by the wayside.

Here our guide showed us her tattoos. One arm tatto tells her personal story, and the other shows her family's history.

There were several artists working on projects, and we viewed them from an overhead walkway.

A young artist, in his teens or early 20s, engraving a piece of art.

Traditional Maori clothing
made from wild flax

Wild New Zealand Flax, that is scraped and worked to make textiles.

I got a huge kick out of watching our guide's aunt demonstrating how to make their traditional flax into decorative strips, which are then used in traditional ware. It reminded me very much of how the California Maidu and Miwok work tule. Here's a quicky video of the demo.


And the other thing that thrilled me to pieces in a quirky way was this pair of stuffed birds. They are a male and female Huia birds. The females had long curved bills, but the males had straight bills. They had a beautiful song and went extinct due to loss of habitat, hunting them for their white-tipped black tail feathers for fashion and for the Maori chefs to wear. And as that wasn't bad enough, the species was a ground nester too, so when cats, rats, stoats, weasels and Australian Possums were imported their nests and nestlings were easy prey.

These birds were at the Arts & Crafts center and I thought the tour would mention them but didn't. It was amazing to see the pair, like seeing a stuffed passenger pigeon or a dodo.

We were walked down to the thermal area to look at the geysers and thermals by daylight. We would return again after our feast.

On the walk back from the thermal area we visited the Kiwi exhibit where one of the most iconic New Zealand birds snuck around in the dark trying its little best to keep up from seeing it. I am dead set on coming back some day to see one of New Zealand's Kiwi species in the wild.


We had a second guide, who was also a Maori of New Zealand. She was also quite nice and I loved hearing the accent. She chose a young man in the group to be our 'chef' and then taught us how we were to behave because we were to enter a genuine Maori meeting house, and if it was done incorrectly in a manner that insulted the Maori of the meeting house, we wouldn't be allowed in.

A daytime peek inside the Maori meeting
house prior to the evening's presentation

Another video, this one 2 mins also. The roasted Hāngi is removed from the underground oven, or umu (pronounced 'emu'). The last bit is what our guide told us was necessary for us to enter the Maori meeting house.  She had a very pretty & interesting accent.


The Hāngi we attended was marvelous. The food was great, nothing too exotic, meaning no Kiwi on the menu. There was plenty of food, plenty of time to eat it and chat. I can't believe I was so into the feast that I took not one photo at the Hāngi. That doesn't happen v. often, does it?

Back to the Maori meeting house. Fun! There is a video of the dances and singing. This final video, shows a nice variety of the wonderful presentations that were performed for us. At one point they asked for volunteers to dance, using 'poi', two white balls, held together by a long string. They are rhythmically swung in time to the music. Women volunteers were recruited to come up on stage and dance with poi. My lack of skill did not stop me from volunteering!  Ila filmed a bit of me screwing up on stage, which isn't included here, but that's Ok, there are plenty of knowledgeable dancers here doing themselves proud.


After all the dancing, and all the feasting, a tram drove us back down to the thermals. Along the way Ila and I chatted with our tour buds, the Chilean ladies. Lots of fun chatting with them. When we got to the thermal area we were offered a nice cup of hot chocolate, and not a one of the four of us had any room for even a sip of cocoa. Honestly, had I drunk a cup, there would have been a pretty messy and spontaneous thermal explosion, I can tell you!

The walkway along the thermal
path - the geysers were lit up

The rocks that are sat are always warm, from the
thermal activity beneath them. Kind of relaxing

The thermals of Te Puia are one of the world's great thermal wonders, which includes Yellowstone National Park and Hawaii's magnificent Kilauea. Made me wildly happy to think I've been lucky enough to visit them all. And I haven't even been blown up as yet so that's good.

Lake Tikitapau and the Buried Village of Te Wairoa

Rototura Scenery

Welcome Swallow

Today was a BIG day, so it will take two posts to spit it all out. The day started with a nice drive out of Rototura, to the out back.  We stopped to look around at Lake Tikiapau, 'Blue Lake'. There was a guard rail that the 'Welcome Swallows' that is the actual species name, not their attitude towards guests.


Little New Zealand Grebes - Dab Chicks - were doing their dance routine on the lake. Not sure if I was seeing breeding behavior or just bad tempered birdies.

Our next stop was the Buried Village of Te Wairoa. I knew nothing of the place when we arrived. The village was once the center of a Christian monastery and village in the mid 1800s. The entire settlement was buried under by the volcanic eruption Mt Tarawera.

Museum and Archeological Centre of Te Wairoa

Ila went right on in, but I heard bird song so wanted to stay and find the birds. Across the little roadway from the museum, was a massive forest with 50 and 60 ft high trees. There was bird song coming from the trees and pigeon sized birds fluttering around. After getting loads of crap photos (too far off) I went in the museum, and met the greeter, a lady in Victorian dress. We had a nice chat about the birds, which were Tui. 

I took a short tour of the museum which explained there was once a beautiful pink and white 'terrace' the photos of which look much like Yellowstone National Park's Mammoth Terraces. Here are comparisons.

Te Wairoa 'Pink & White Terraces'
New Zealand

On the left: The Pink & White terraces, which no longer exist. They were destroyed by the Mt Tarawera volcano. The terraces were buried as well as the village that was there.

Mammoth Hot Springs,
Yellowstone, Wyoming

The Mammoth Terraces of north Yellowstone are still there (knock on wood) and hopefully will remain there for a long, long, time.

Following the museum tour Ila and I settled on the back porch to rehydrate with some cool drinks and to enjoy the trees and flowering shrubs.  There were good birds there too.

Common Myna, non-native

There one other native at the buried village that I got to view. It was climbing in a little shrub on the patio, busy either eating insects, nectar and whatever it could get. So pretty!

Best photo of the BellBird - a Native Species!

Lovely curved bill on the Bellbird

The Bellbird was fun to watch. It dug around in the flowers, as if it couldn't decide what it wanted for lunch.




Leaving the Museum we headed out on the road where the scenery was lost on me because I was guilty of 'DWB' which is 'Driving While Birding'.  These are some of the photos I got of the local birds.

European Goldfinches (non-native)

This bird was one that made my day. A 'Sacred Kingfisher'. The North American Belted Kingfishers never allow approach closer than .5 to 1 mile. The birdies need their space! But this New Zealand native Kingfisher couldn't have cared less that I was right beneath it, taking dozens of photos.

Not at all grumpy but absolutely native: Sacred Kingfisher

 European Song Thrush, Non-native

In a quiet residential neighborhood with the usual drop-dead gorgeous homes, there were lots of flowering shrubbery, with lovely, iridescent Tui birds scrambling about in the branches. Got fairly decent photos of the birds. They are strange in that they have a double poofy ball of white feathers that hang down at their throats, which are ornamental. 

Tui birds look black from a distance, but iridescent green and even bronze up close.

The Tui birds are messengers to the gods to the Maori. Nice work if you can get it.

Tui spiritual meaning: Because of their personality, the Tui are associated with life fulfilment, confidence and spiritual harmony. In Māori culture the Tui has powerful significance. They act as messengers to the gods in the heavens.

Tuis are Honeyeaters and have 'brush' tongues for gathering flower nectar

By the time we headed back to Rototura, we were starvin' like Marvin. We headed downtown and after searching up and down the streets we wound up  at The Blind Finch (Ila's idea, not mine, I swear!).

Humongous Lamb-burger

The restaurant specializes in burgers, so I tried a lamb burger for lunch and it came with a truckload of fries.  Rather bad news as tonight we will be attending a Maori feast. Don't want to go to a feast with a full belly.

Post way-filling lunch, we headed back to the hotel. There I spent an hour or three catching up on my journaling and resting. Ila went for a walk, treasuring hunting at the local gift shops. When Ila got back we headed to the lobby where we were picked up by a friendly taxi driver for our ride to the Maori Te Puia Center where tonight's adventures take place. 

Huka Falls and Rototura

Huka Falls of Lake Taupo, New Zealand

We were up and on the road at 8AM, headed for Taupo, and then Rototura. I just drove, my mind having zero expectations for the day. Just happy to drive through sheep infested grasslands with the sort of scenery seen in illustrations from fairy tales. Ila however was eager to take a boat trip on Lake Taupo that would get us a good view of Huka Falls. Arriving at Lake Taupo we waited for whomever ran the boat trip to arrive. When someone did arrive, it was the boat captain. He said the boat would take off as soon its other passengers - teachers and school children - we could leave. The captain was sure there would be room for Ila and I. Departure was set for around 12:30-ish. 

 While we waited, I rummaged around the car park, and noticed something fluttering. I assumed it was a Sky Lark which love to 'sky lark' about. This bird kept fluttering upward, hanging the air, then landing. Then I got close enough for photos and became besotted - this was no Sky Lark, this was a decidedly fancier bird.



I followed the little fluttering thing for quite a while. Finally it very-nearly-settled down, allowing shots of it through fencing posts.  The little beauty with it's fancy tail and striped face was a Fantail, one of the endemic (native) birds.

The Fantail is loved by Kiwis for the flashy tail it doesn't hesitate to show off.

I only managed one photo of it and that tail is quite the show stopper, even when seen through posts.

Flying New Zealand Pigeon - sadly, not my photo

When it was time to board the boat, I was pretty riled up by the local birds. Nearly lost my mind when I spotted a gigantic pigeon, high overhead, bulleting into the forest. It was a native species, a New Zealand Pigeon. It shot by quickly enough I couldn't begin to get my camera aimed at it. I was talking myself out of the idea that I'd actually seen the bird.


However, when the kiddies and teachers arrived, and it was time to board the boat cruise, the captain, bless his heart spoke to me. "You're a birder aren't you? Saw you watching that New Zealand Pigeon fly by."  Having the captain second my identification of the pigeon was comforting and I thanked him as profusely as if he'd just saved me from drowning.

There were other birds of note before we even left the dock. Right next to the boat an Australian Black Swans sat on its nest, while its mate dipped and dabbled, pulling up long strands of weed, for placing on the nest.

Swan pulling up lake weeds, & placing them on its nest

'Dab Chick' or New Zealand Grebe

The Captain pointed out a teeny wienie water bird, slinking on the off shore. He called the cute little thing a 'Dab Chick'. Reminded me of Texas Least Grebes.






As the little boat chugged onto the lake, I realized this was going to be a wonderfully birdie day. Here are the birds of Lake Taupo.

Australian Coot

Little Pied Shag

Rafts of New Zealand Scaups

 Black Shag. 'Shag' is the British name for Cormorants. Interesting as 'shag' has other British meaning as you'd know if you, say, enjoyed watching 'Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery'.

Black Shag

Australian Black Swans were everywhere on the lake

 The captain made sure to bring the school kiddies over to view a Black Swan sitting on its nest.

I suspected this swan was used to being
approached by boats. It didn't budge an inch

Sacred Kingfisher

I got one far off photo of a Sacred Kingfisher, another White-faced Heron.











I loved seeing lots of beautiful little red-legged shore birds, Pied Stilts, that several times, bulleted past the boat.

Pied Stilts

It took about an hour to get up to Huka Falls. Along the way there were several vantage points that people hiking though the riparian jungle on either side of the lake, could view the lake and the falls. When we got to the falls, the captain called on group after group of the school kiddies to climb onto the bow of the boat, to scream and shriek with the joy of getting misted over by the waterfall.

School Teachers

I, a connoisseur of international kiddos, was tickled to see they appeared to be Maori. During all this, Ila and I were seated at the back of the boat. I'd already had a look inside the body of the boat, in which the ceiling was coated with international money of all sorts.

The ceiling of the little boat was papered over with international money





Then to our startled 'horror' Ila and I heard the captain cry out, "Now let's have the two lovely American Ladies get up on the bow, to see the Falls."

Amazing that we weren't the ones screeching when we got our turn, which you can see below.


Thoroughly enjoyed the boat cruise, which I probably wouldn't have even thought of doing had I been on my own, so thanks for that Ila!

The boat trip completed, we then drove to Rototura, which is a HUGELY popular tourist town. There we checked into the ginormous Millennial Hotel.

The Millennial has the biggest lobby I've ever seen in a hotel

There was beautiful, hand carved Maori artwork and paneling strewn about.

Greenhouse type walkways between the hotel sections

We were tickled that for whatever reason, we scored another 'upgrade', though this time it wasn't to a penthouse, but to a room with quite a nice view.

The view from our hotel room, overlooking Lake Rotorua

Also part of the 'view' is the Rotorua Museum

It was classic Crepes Suzette with lemon ice for 'moi'

We put our stuff away and zoomed out for a short drive and a long walk in downtown Rotorua. We hit up the numerous souvenir shops (no... I restrained myself). Then later in the evening we had dinner at the Millenial's restaurant where it was lamb for Ila and duck for me, and yummy desserts for us both.