Journey to the Centre of the North Island, (well, nearly): 26, 27 April

Journey to the Centre of the North Island (well, nearly): 26, 27 April

"I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear." 

Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth

En route to our campsite in Rotorua, we visit the 'Thermal Wonderland'. This is a vast complex of volcanic earthscapes, like the 'Craters of the Moon' in Taupo, only much larger and more dramatic - 'Taupo on Speed' as someone on trip advisor had termed it. 

We walk through a maze of pathways, winding through, around and, sometimes, over, huge yellow lakes, craters encrusted with thin spindly feelers of red, gold and a rather sickly green, steaming bubbling water and, most spectacularly, bubbling mud. 

The mud is quite definately the highlight, thick and grey and strongly sulphurous smelling, bubbling furiously, but not necessarily evenly, with frequent and rather sudden spurts reaching several metres in height. We crowd at the fence around it, and survey it. There is, as Jules Verne's narrative comments, a slight but definite of edge of fear in the watching. It comes, I think, partly from the obvious danger, the mud is heated well beyond boiling point and us viscous with chemicals not designed for interaction with the rather fragile human body, but mostly from a very pure and heady sense of awe. I want to lean in and enjoy this awe, to let my imagination run riot, faced with the power of this landscape. I want to try to imagine the dark and powerful mood of a God who created this element of our world.  If this is indeed, what is contained in the deep, dark reaches of our globe, is this landscape God's way of showing us the inner workings, like an orologist revealing the inner clockwork of his favourite time peice, that we might be all the more impressed by its intricacy. 

Such romantic musings are rather ruined, however, by the presence of Other Tourists, that most annoying of races. I decide to take a short video on my phone of the pulsating mud in order to remember one of the most atmospheric aspects of it, namely the gulping, glooping sounds of the mud as it bubbles. 

I turn on my video. The moment I do so a child begins a tantrum that lasts for the entire video. Replaying it, a little exasperatedly afterwards, it seems eerily as though the mud is shrieking. It's not quite eerie enough, however, not to have rather drowned out the sense of atmosphere. 

On my second attempt, the instant i begin filming an entire coach group arrives and makes its way to the mudpool. 

"Ha!" remarks one of them, loudly, "Wouldn't want to use THAT as a face pack, eh Marge?" 

This hilarious joke is then repeated as nauseum as new people clamour up to the fence. 

"Hey Marge, did you hear that?"

"No, hear what?" 

"He said you wouldn't want to use it....as a face pack!!!"

"What's that?" 

"Oh it was just Greg telling Marge she should use it as a face pack"

"Ha!"

"A what?"

"A face pack!" 

"Ha!".

I give up.

"My uncle wasted a great deal of breath in giving him directions, but worthy Hans took not the slightest notice of his words.” 

Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Hot pools are my nemisis, as I have, I think, said in a blog entry before, though I haven't explained it. Actually I think my nemisis is not  the hot pools themselves, but my own stubborn inability to do anything sensible when using them or to take the off repeated advice. Previous overlong soaks in hot pools in New Zealand, in Taupo and Hanmer, have left me with a headache and a promise to myself not to do it again. Prior, of course, to doing it again, getting a headache, and promising myself not to do it again... 

"Don't spend longer than twenty minutes in the hot pools." A sign always says. In every hot pool we have been to.

We generally spend a couple of hours. 

'It's OK this time, I am drinking water at the same time."

I tell myself. Or,

"It's OK this time, because it's raining..."

Or simply, "the pool is nice. I like it."

The hot pools at Rotorua are  no exception. They are lovely, and so I happily roam arpund, trying out each one until, predictably, given the accompanying strong smell of sulphur smell, I get not only a headache but rather fuzzy vision, and stagger out early (by which I mean, only an hour and a half in). 

I am cross eyed with pain for the afternoon. I try to sleep, drink water so fast I turn into a human colander which does no good, and have to spend Helen's birthday champagne drinking session sipping water and grinning bravely through a tilting, nauseus world of my own, rather stupid, creation. 

And the brave grinning part? Well, I'm not that brave. I go back to our van. To lie down and whimper.

And the moral of the story? Do obey instructions. Particularly if this has happened before. Try to learn from your mistakes as opposed to rapidly turning them into a habit. What? Obvious, you say? Not to some of us, it seems.

PostScript: I am now rather mortally afraid of hot pools and so I do, finally, learn my lesson. I don't soak in any more hot pools while we are travelling and will only venture into saunas under strictly timed conditions. Sometimes it takes a lot of stubborn recreation of mistakes before you learn...

Although there was that time in Bolivia....

"I dream with my eyes open.” 

Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth

Thankfully, by the time we are collected for our evening, hosted by a Maori village, my headache has abated to a dull sort of fizzing behind my eyes. But the Maori experience is so distracting and so wonderful that the remaining pain actually adds to the experience, sharpening my senses and making the night even more memorable. Whenever we see something amazing, which is often, everything about it is wonderful in the light of it. Even pain becomes part of the visceral joy of it all. Which I suppose is a way of approaching life in general.

Our bus is driven by an ultra cheerful Maori lady, complete with Maori facial markings, known as Moko. We pick up other guests on the way, and, as we travel she explains to us that when we arrive we will need to be welcomed into the Maori village through the traditional Mauri ceremonial welcoming. This entails several Maori warriors coming out to perform versions of huka and war dances designed to intimidate the new potential intruder and as a show of strength, before ascertaining that the visitor is peaceful ans may be safely admitted into the village. We are  entreated not to laugh or smile during this ceremony, even though, to our culture, the part of the dance in which the tongue and eyes bulge out as a form of intimidation, may seem comical. Laughter at this point will cause great offence. Everyone on the bus makes an instant internal resolution not to laugh, withthe simultaneous fear that such resolve will only serve to heighten the impulse. The dance being done, our driver continues, the Maori warriar will offer a token of peace, thrown to the ground between Maori and visitors, which the 'Chief' of our 'tribe' (busload) of visitors must pick up to show his friendly intentions, following which he will be greeted in the traditional way - with a solemn meeting of foreheads. 

We therefore need a male chief, a title which is considered a great honour. Should our Chief perform the ceremony wrong or cause offence, we may not be granted admittance. 

"Oh...OK, OK, I'll do it then" says a voice from a rather giggly group near the back of the coach, in the notable absence of any discernible persuasion. 

And up to the front of the coach cones our 'Chief',  a whooping, air punching lad who I shall name Terry, who greets his subjects with a jubilant "yeah!!!!" and proceeds to lead the coach in three cheers, as far as I can tell, to himself, over the voice of our rather patient Maori driver who is beginning to try to explain his duties. 

When she gets a word in edgeways our driver teaches us the traditional greeting of a chief and his tribe, and some traditional Maori words.

" Puki Puki is the word for applause.  she tells us, "You should demonstrate Puki Puki whenever something is performed in front of you. Kia Ora is a greetung and a welcome. You can also use Kia Ora for..."

"Puki Puki" cries Terry, pronouncing it wrong and raising his hands grandly to signify our apparent tribal requirement to regard him nearly as highly as he regards himself.

There is tumultuous applause from his friends at the back, and various shouts in respect of how many beers he should drink when he gets there.

"What is the betting," I say under cover of the noise of Terry who is generally shouting random words over the still very patient microphoned voice of our driver, "that our chief manages to cause offence within the first fifteen minutes?"

"Fifteen?" Says M, "you're being a bit generous."

Perhaps I am being a little hard on Terry, though a mean voice inside me tells me I am rather under representing his apparent absolute need to be the centre of attention, literally, every minute. It does seem like a compulsion. Our Maori driver is fantastically good humoured, but I don't think I am alone in hoping, on that journey, to hear a little more from her and quite significantly less from Terry. He is fascinating, in that he seems actually incapable of listening when somebody else is speaking, and to grow increasingly fidgety and tense all the time the attention is not entirely and unadulteratedly focused on him. To get the attention back onto him he will simply shout something, anything, whether relevant or not, and, throughout the ensuing evening, thinks nothing of just running up to the front of whatever it is we are watching, even in the absence of any, even tenuous, excuse to do so. It seems like a continuous and pathological state of attention-hunger. Now I am being mean. Perhaps Terry actually does have a psychological problem and I should be rather more charitable about it. 

Because, in fact, when it comes to it, our hyperexhibitionist Chief does manage to perform his duties as required, respectfully and without giving inbto the temptation to try to join the warriors in their performance or otherwise direct attention onto himself. Perhaps, as such a disrespectful member of our tribe, showing such sarcastic and mutinous attitude towards our chef, I am far more in breach of Maori custom than he could have been, and, were there to have been any kind of thought policing, I would have been ousted at the gates.

Frankly, I defy anyone to laugh in the face of the warriors' welcome dance. It is absolutely breath taking and if you don't imagine that a tongue poked out as far as it can go, stretching down onto the chin and with wildly staring eyes above it, fixing you with their concentrated gaze, could be threatening, then your imagination is sadly lacking.

The warriors burst out in turn, dancing with incredible athleticism, wide legged and stamping, eyes wide, tongue out, always absolutely, doggedly focused on the small group of Chiefs from the various buses, daring them to show anything other than a peaceful intent. They are tattooed to varying degrees in the black inked patterns and swirls indicative of Maori custom. Their bodies are toned and muscular, and smoothly golden in the evening light. They carry a staff, some with a spear attachment at the end, and they are bare chested, their skin smooth and hairless on their torsos, but with thick, black gleaming hair on their heads. They wear 'skirts' woven with cloth and ferns and are barefoot and chiseled. They look quite beautiful.

For the entire performance everyone is spellbound and then our Chief picks up the token, and the traditional greeting takes place. We are ushered in, split as we go into smaller groups, ours being thankfully, sans Terry. I really want to learn about Maori life and I am not sure it would be possible, with Terry in our group, to learn about anything other than Terry.

The village is beautiful in the twilight, lit with fires and guarded by carved figures who protect the village and its occupants. 

We rotate in our small groups around various small stations, in front of small wood and straw huts, beautifully and strongly made, with intricate carvings of Maori symbols for peace, happiness, the world and the environment across the roof beans and at the entrances. 

Two lady Maoris teach us a game called Poi Poi, which is played by the women and children in the tribe, involving a small 'bean-bag'-like weight on a string, which the player flips around, skilfully, causing it to hit against their alternate hands. It's harder than it looks, and when Helen volunteers to try it, she finds it surprisingly difficult to coordinate in time to hit her hands in the fast rhythm dictated by the ladies, who expertly flip the bag around as though it were child's play. Which it apparently is. It is used to make percussion for music, sometimes, and other times just as a game, useful for improving coordination and dexterity. 

Moving on, a male Maori gentleman talks to us about the traditional black tattoos. These differ depending on the status of the wearer and their occupation. Women wear them on their lips and chins, men on their faces, buttocks and thighs. A warrior male might have more tattoos, particularly on his legs. A greatee number or size of tattoos (or Moko) denotes a higher status, a commanding of more respect, something which is quite understandable when you learn how it's done. The skin is pierced with a tool similar to a hammer and chisel, allowed to heal, then broken again so that the skin is grooved, literally carved rather than simply painted. The dye used to make the black colour is created using pigments from burned timbers. 

With newfound respect for the wearers of Moko, we move onward.

A lady shows us the plants used to make garments, rooves and rope. We touch the fibres and feel how soft but strong they are. Representative, perhaps of the Maori themselves with their combination of great peace and spirituality, and great strength. But this is my comparison, and not theirs.

Two men show us another Maori game, this time for the men. Michael tries it and finds, as did Helen earlier, that it is very much easier said than done, though he does manage to get through to the final round. The game is played around a collection of sticks, one for each player, which are stood on end on the ground. On a clapped command the players must move one stick to right or left depending on instruction, letting go of their own stick but grabbing the other before it can fall. Predictably, the sticks are then gradually moved further apart so that the dash becomes more urgent, and the players and their sticks are gradually eliminated as they fail to catch the next in time.

A bit of fun, perhaps but Maori games always have an object and, particularly for the men, are taken very seriously. We are shown another game in which a ladder formed out of sticks must be run through very fast by a man, his legs moving swiftly between the sticks without touching them, without pausing, overbalancing or placing more than one foot on the ground at a time. The height at which this horizontal 'ladder' is placed is raised gradually for greater athleticism and if the man trips of kicks a stick he is given a whack, albeit in good humour, round the back of the legs with it and must begin again. It teaches dexterity and swiftness of footwork, important for warriors. It also, I imagine, teaches discipline and endurance.

Finally, we are shown a shortened performance of the Haka, following which the men in the group are invited to learn it. This experience, enjoyed as much by Helen and I as it is by the boys, shows us that in fact it is indeed possible for a poked out tongue and staring eyes to be very conical, especially if performed, in Michael's case, with a constant delighted beam, and in M's, with a sort of academic concentration. Don't get me wrong though, as a later performance of the Haka by the experts reveals - done right, it is every bit as terrifying as it is intended to be.

We move, after that, into a large auditorium, where we are seated and addressed by a Maori man who shows us a short video and generally explains to us about Maori beliefs and customs. Faith in God is a key tenet, and God is at the centre of the earth and everything we do. The earth, as part of God, and he of it, must be held in great respect and cared for, for the sake both of Maori (and indeed anyone elses) children and the great ancestors, who are very important to Maoris. The Maori belief system emphasises peace, rather than war, and does not encourage fighting, seeing it only as a weakness if undertaken without clear and necessary cause. Peacefulness, reflection and meditation on important wisdoms and truths are prized highly. 

Following this, we are treated to a series of performances, including various dances by both men and women, including the Haka, and, most mind blowingly, song. The Maori prize music highly, but, when a man comes onto the stage and we are told he will sing a traditional song telling the story of a young Maori couple, forbidden to marry, who journeyed all the way across a wide lake in the dark to be together, I am still not expecting what we receive when he stands, without ceremony, in the middle of the stage -  and opens his mouth.

The sound which emerges is huge - dense and reverberating, deep and beautiful. I am amazed by its power, without a microphone, and it is not until a lady joins him, followed by several group performances after, that I realise that all the tribe seem to have the same, intensity and depth of voice. Is it hereditary, I wonder, as we wend our way home later and an  impromptu karaoke session means we are led in song by our Maori lady bus driver, who has just the same depth of vocal chords, is it literally in the Maori blood? Or is it cultivated, a certain style of song practiced from an early age and emphasised as part of life, as a thing that you do for fun, the way British people watch EastEnders. 

Either way it is beautiful and by time it is over and we are ushered out (I think Terry may have wangled his way onto the stage at sone point in it, but I may have blocked it from my mind), my ears are still reverberating with the sheer power of that song. I am unutterably impressed.

We are seated in the main hall ready for our Hangi, and we all bow our heads in relative silence (Terry, remember?) while the Maori leader prays to God to say thank you for our food. This done, we fall upon it. And, oh, what food.

A Hangi is food cooked in the ground, essentially by heating stones over a large fire, laying the stones in a pit in the ground, laying the food on top, covering it over and then burying the whole thing in earth. The food cooks slowly, essentially steaming, but it retains a beautiful and unmistakable peaty, smoky flavour, so that it needs no further flavouring. As vegetarians we are still extremely well fed, though the traditional main componant is chicken. We pile our plates high with potatoes and carrots, their barbecue flavour being overwhelmingly morish, and are provided with our very own mini lasagnas. The lasagnas are the only thing not cooked as part of the Hangi, though are still delicious, but frankly, I could have just eaten the vegetables and been perfectly satisfied. Dessert is huge slabs of sticky toffee pudding, urns full of custard, and enormous pavlovas, the size of both of which make it seem like some sort of Harry Potter style feast for giants. There is nothing in this whole meal which is anything short of exquisite - and huge - a combination not normally experienced in food, in restaurants at least. The posher, more 'exquisite' restaurants seem normally to require you to pay for the exquisite taste by being allowed only one baton of carrot, a sliver of the main coursr and a stick of celery, all beautifully flavoured with a sauce which is draped over in quantities designed more for decoration than taste, the whole thing being served on an oversized plate, as if to taunt you further. 

Not so here. We are exquisitely and bountifully stuffed like little sausages by the time the eating is over - and by the time Terry, once again, takes to the stage for no apparent reason. Once the, seemingly a little bemused, master of ceremonies manages to assume his own place centre stage, he announces that some of the visitors in our number have in fact been here all day, and are staying the night and have learned a Maori song, which they will now sing to us.

Accompanied of course, by Terry. Who has not been there all day and does not know the song. 

Before we leave, we are invited to join hands and make an entreaty for peace. 'Why should humans fight each other and die in violence?' asks our Maori host, in apparently genuine bewilderment and sadness. I wholeheartedly agree and as I join in the prayer for peace I send it out as far as I can to all those who are living in conditions of war, chosen not by themselves, but by leaders, clans or government who fight, very often, for a cause only they wholly believe in, and from the consequences of which which only they will be safe.

It sounds like a sombre end to the evening, but in fact I have been impressed by the peaceful and spiritual nature of the Maori, mixed so wholeheartedly with a sense of celebration and fun. There is an easy going feel, a belief that there is no reason why everything shouldn't be a party.

Which brings me to the karaoke session on the way home. Our driver, as we wend our way back, asks us which nationalities we represent. There are French, English, American, German, Chinese and of course, Maori. Our driver asks us each to sing a song from our country. She begins by singing us a Maori song in her beautiful deep voice. 

Unfortunately Terry is on board, otherwise it would have been good to hear the end.

The Americans go next, given that Terry seems to have started it anyway. The group begin to sing a song, oddly, at first without the unmistakable dulcet tones of the great Chief himself, though this is all explained when he starts to sing the song again from scratch, a couple of lines behind everyone else, thus, as was presumably the intention, drowning everyone else out in confusion. 

Other nationalities are harder to hear, and shyer, though the Chinese song has a beautiful lilt to it, and, gains in volume as the singers gain in confidence, and obvious enjoyment. 

The French song is drowned out by Terry. Also the German's.

When it comes to the English, we are of course hopelessly British about it. Hesitantly, I eventually start singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which our driver notes rather pointedly is actually not British at all but stolen from the  native American slaves. We sing it anyway. 

Terry 'joins in'.

Finally, we are approaching a roundabout. 

"You need to sing something special now," says our driver with sone glee, and she leads us in a jubilant chorus of 'she'll be coming round the mountain'. 

We do so, with increasing hilarity and vigour as we circle the roundabout five or six times, growing in fervour and volume and complete with 'beep-beeps' of the horn, wherever musically necessary.

Roundabouts, for me, will never quite be the same again. There are several revisions of this perform and, (though without the horns or the circling) that take place in our van throughout the rest of the trip. 

Finally, we bid good night to our Chief. Our driver thanks him with graciousness and humour. He has been great fun, she says, and very entertaining, and she leads us in a round of applause. I join in with fervancy, partly because I am feeling a little bad about the contradiction between the Maori attitude of acceptance and peace versus my own internal judgement of him. And partly because it is the first time that clapping him hasn't been his suggestion.

We disembark and float into bed, minds filled with incredible images and the beautiful Maori nature.

Spiritually must be taken seriously, as must our work, whatever it be, and our sense of respect and peace towards others.

Aside from that - everything is a party. Even the drive home.

"She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes,

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes,

She'll be coming round the mountain, coming round the mountain,

Coming round the mountain when she comes.

Singing hi yi yippy yippi yi,

Singing hi yi yippy yippi yi,

Singing hi yi yippy,

Hi yi yippy

Hi yi yippy yippy yi.

She'll be driving six white horses when she comes (beep beep) 

She'll be driving six white horses when she comes (beep beep) 

She'll be driving six white horses, Driving six white horses,

Driving six white horses when she comes.

BEEP BEEP!"