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We were up early to go to the thermal wonderland. The lady knox geyser there erupts at 10am everyday so we didn't want to miss it! It took a little longer to get there than expected and it was very busy! We got a good seat and sat and waited!! We thought it was completely natural but there is a guy who adds a type of soap to encourage it to erupt consistently. Without the soap it could erupt at anytime within a 36 hours period. Anyhoo, we watched and waited, it started with foam which turned to water that gradually grew in height. We thought it would only be a short shoot of water but it could last up to an hour! For all we knew it could have been a hose pipe shooting the water but it was pretty cool nevertheless!
From there we followed the trail around the wonderland to see more geysers, sulphur pools, hot springs, mud pools, the champagne pool, mineral terraces and multi-hued rocks. Some of the features were quite cool, including the green devils pool at the end! The pics show more of what I mean!
From the wonderland we went over the road to the hot springs for a dip! We got a private pool to start with which was lovely as it looked out over the country side! Very cool! Once our time as up we made our way around the other pools until we were too hot!! Time was getting on so we went back to town in search of flip flops for Mark! He has managed to loose his somehow! In a bit of a rush we went back to the campsite to get organised and ready for our Maori night! They collected us from the campsite along with another couple and we were the first ones there! We didn't realise just how many people would be there, at least 100! We were the youngest on our table and we chatted to a lovely brummie couple! It was lovely as the lady was very mumsie!! There was a great introduction to the evening, the guy organising it went round finding out where everyone was from and we became the tribe of 24 nations! Quite a lot really!! He was quite impressive as he could speak a bit of almost every language! A chief had to be chosen, and a Texan volunteered himself! After the introduction we went to see where our food was cooking. The food was lowered into the ground on a big wire basket on to hot stones where it was left for a few hours to cook. It was all traditional food called hangi. From there we went on a walk through the bush to the river. As we walked through the Maoris were walking on the hill above us trying to scare us away! We passed a crystal clear pond with a couple of eels and fish in! Once at the river we could hear the Maoris coming in their war canoe. The were singing/chanting and co-ordinating their paddles in order to try and scare us away from their village. We then followed them back through the bush to their village where they used to live and was set up on a stage for us to watch. They tried again to scare us off with their chants, stamping and angry faces! Our chief had to accept the peace offering from them and as a result of his speech, we were all accepted into their village. They don't live like this anymore and were only protecting their village for our sakes as this is what would have happened when they did live there. We then watched as they performed songs, dances including the haka and exercises while explaining the meaning behind them all.
When it was time for dinner we went back to the main hall where the buffet had been laid out. We even got desert of choc pud! Yum!
From dinner we went on a bush walk in the dark with torches, very scary! We went to look at the different trees and leaves which Maori's used to use for medicines. We saw where the chief would have lives and then we walked without our torches to see all the glow worms! Having never seen such things we were very excited! We ended the walk near the crystal clear pond from early which was in fact a spring. The water that we had drunk with dinner had come from that spring, and wasn't too bad! The spring was surrounded by even more glow worms!
It was a brilliant evening and we really enjoyed it!
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