Warriors, Geysers, and Waterfalls, Oh My!

Forgive what will be a short post. It's late and I'm wiped out from all of the day's activities. It feels like I've been in New Zealand for so long and only a moment at the same time. I revel each moment in the Southern Hemisphere summer and am continuously awed by the variety and splendor of foliage and landscape.

Today we spent the morning enriching our minds and exercising our bodies at Te Puia, a Maori cultural center. We saw traditional wood-carving and weaving techniques, witnessed a traditional tribal welcome ceremony, saw dancers and warriors, and wandered for at least an hour among foul-smelling but spectacular geysers and mud pools. The geysers greeted us with a spray of fine mist while the mud pools gargled and hissed like the brew in a witch's cauldron. I love the Maori emphasis on honoring the earth, our history, and the family. Their traditions teach that everything is connected and that we are surrounded by the spiritual.

After lunch we drove south to a secluded spot on a lake aptly named the Hidden Valley. We took a boat ride across the lake and explored even more geo-thermal formations. They stank up a storm and created vivid colors and gnarly formations as the passed over the ground. The water and steam were so hot, the temperature in the surrounding areas was noticeably higher. 

"It feels like we're descending into Hell!" observed a woman walking down the path in front of us towards a particular set of mud pools.  Her comparison was perhaps overly dramatic but she did have a point. It was getting hot!

I can't get enough of the ferns growing everywhere. They grow low and bushy but also tall, as tree ferns. They look soft and elegant and so very, very green.

When we'd had our fill of hot pools, we continued south towards the town of Taupo, where we spent close to an hour oogling an incredible waterfall called Huka Falls. The water surging down the narrow chasm was bluest of aqua blue, like a newly-melted glacier. The falls weren't very tall but that river going over was fast and frothy, powerful. The river system of which those falls are a part supplies 15% of the area's electricity.

After a nice dinner on a patio overlooking Taupo Lake, we ended the day with a dip in some secluded mineral pools. A perfect end to the day.