Going Native

Just to save you all the filthy look my ignorance earned me, the natives of New Zealand are not an offshoot of the Aborigines. The Maori are, in fact, much more closely related to the natives of Hawaii, due to some massive navigation balls-up that I can’t be bothered to explain. Another difference is that the Kiwis seem to have been considerably nicer to the Maori than the Australians were/are to the Aborigines. For one, they’ve persisted with the Maori place names (to my mother’s consternation; you try asking for directions to Tewhakarewarewa and see how you like it), and – more importantly – they’ve let them keep their own land (or, in some cases, given it back after nicking it several decades ago) and villages.

We visited one example of which – the name of which is so long and convoluted it’s generally shortened to Whaka – the other day, and this one was particularly significant because it was a thermal village. This basically means that they get free, unlimited hot water for cooking, cleaning and bathing, but the additional disadvantage of a permanent odour of rotten eggs. The sulphur beneath the ground here causes the water to heat up (or possibly vice versa...), resulting in steam pools, bubbling mud, bright green sulphur lakes, active geysers and the occasional eruption of boiling water.

But to be honest, I was far less interested in the science of the thermal village, and far more intrigued by the Maori people themselves. Because this village is still lived in, by 23 different families, and still clings to all the traditions of their ancestors. Our tour guide – who had lived in the village since birth – was an absolute mine of information, and delved into fascinating detail regarding their traditions (like funeral procedures, penny diving and native dances), their cooking methods (45 seconds in a steam pool for a hard-boiled egg...lucky buggers) and their skills (8 weeks to make a skirt that’s a masterclass in proficiency but utterly useless as an item of clothing). To be honest, if I went through all of the fascinating information and demonstrations the guide went through, you’d be reading a distinctly patchy and insensible 5000 words worth of boring blog, and we can’t have that, can we? Though what does deserve a mention is the dance demonstration we went to, where a group of the Maoris gave us an example of their traditional celebratory, love and war dances, which were brilliantly performed. The war dance involved a lot of knee-slapping, arm-waving, eye-bulging and tongue-wagging, which sounds hysterical but let me tell you – were I an enemy tribe, one look at that would have had me legging it in the opposite direction (watch the beginning of a New Zealand rugby match to understand why).

Oh dear, that was a very long paragraph...

Anyway, that was probably my favourite activity of the past three days, even though that afternoon we went to a luge track. For those who don’t know, a luge is like go-karting on a slope (or sledging without the snow) – in other words, very fast, slightly scary and massively exhilarating . My mum wimped out after one slope, but my dad, brother and I threw ourselves down a couple more times. Dad and I stuck to the intermediate slope but my brother (being my brother) had to try the advanced course on his third go – I thought this was a bad idea at the time, but when I got to the bottom of the slope and saw my brother, knee-deep in the remnants of a sand pit and wearing a distinctly sheepish expression, you had to see the funny side.

That was all on Saturday, but Sunday (yesterday) and Monday (today) have both been less interesting. Sunday involved a walk round the sulphur lakes (during which it threw it down) and a lot of driving, and today has consisted almost entirely of driving. I say less interesting, but give me a driven car, a fully-charged iPod and some pretty views, and I’m happy as Larry for as long as the iPod battery lasts – so I’ve rather enjoyed it anyway.

But I used this abundance of time to come up with two very important lists, which I was going to save until later in the holiday but have spontaneously decided to write down now instead: -

Things New Zealand Does Better Than England: -
1. Countryside (kind of goes without saying)
2. L&P ( a drink that is high on flavourings, E-numbers and preservatives, and thus delicious)
3. Fanta (again, extra colouring makes it the proper orange stuff – no healthy yellow crap)
4. Tim Tams (like Penguins, but so much better)
5. Thick pillows (this might be specific to hotels, but still)
6. People (it’s lacking in terms of my friends, but the general population are much friendlier)

Things England Does Better Than New Zealand: -
1. My friends (again, goes without saying)
2. Tea (but my mum brought her own stash of Yorkshire tea bags, so we’re good :P)
3. Chocolate (this goes for more or less every country, I’ve found...)
4. Mugs with handles on (this was intensely confusing to begin with)

You could argue that the proportions (ratio? Maths words were never my strong suit...) of my lists suggests I’m going native, but since I have to turn the computer off now to eat my takeaway fish and chips, I’d say I’ve still got a fair amount of British-ness left in me...

(Couldn't post any photos on this due to my dad hovering behind me, breathing fire about it being my brother's turn on the laptop.)