TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

NEW ZEALAND 6

Many of us live in countries where we tend to take the natural world and nature for granted. We know that there are trees, animals, hills and rivers but we tend to just assume that they will always be there. The week that we spent in and around Rotorua in New Zealand made me realise how very different nature can be and how volatile, or uncertain, everything really is. As you may know, the earth is made up of three separate parts the core, the mantle, made up of hot rocks and gases, and the crust. The core, like the core of an apple, is in the middle. The crust, like the crust on a slice of bread, is on the outside, which leaves the mantle in between these two. The core is solid which is why, when I was very young, I could never dig down to Australia like I thought I could. Actually I always got bored after about half a metre, so that may be another reason. All the photos in the first few paragraphs come from that visit to Rotorua and the surrounding area.

The mantle is a layer of hot melted rock that covers the core, while the crust, which is the thinnest layer, sits neatly on the mantle. However, it is still, in most places, about 80 kms thick. What is more, the crust is divided into 14 major tectonic plates. Some people say less, some say more but you and I don’t really care how many, just that there are some and they are there. Unfortunately these crusts are moving, very slowly, but they are moving. That means that the earth hasn’t always looked how it does today. Once, all continents were probably linked together in a big landmass called Pangaea. This split into two, and then bits started dropping off these two, until we are where we are now. But we are still moving. New Zealand is heading north at the rate of about 1 centimetre every three years. But if you’re planning to go to the equator, don’t sit at Cape Reinga and wait, because you may be a bit old when you get there.

It is the crusts or plates that are moving. There are three types of crust; oceanic, continental or a bit of both. Oceanic crust is much harder. The crusts can either move together or apart. When moving apart, new crust can form in the gap but in New Zealand that is not what is happening. New Zealand sits directly on the border between the Pacific Continental Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate and they are moving together. In the North Island, the Pacific Plate is pushing under the Australian one while in the South Island it is the other way around. What, you may ask, happens when they do this and I will try to tell you.

In simple terms you get earthquakes, volcanoes and mountains and New Zealand has loads of these. Plates pushing against each other cause stress, think about standing in a queue of people and think of the stress there, and when the stress gets too much, the plates jump apart causing an earthquake. When a plate dives below another one, its rocks go down into the hot mantle of the earth and then can be forced back, especially if the crust or plate is quite thin above it, in the form of a volcano. The rock is often thrown into the air, but, if this happens underwater, it rapidly cools and forms new rock, creating islands.

In and around Rotorua, the actual crust of the earth is very thin so the hot rocks and gases are really near to the surface. When you arrive in Rotorua, it looks as though everyone has got their kettles boiling because steam seems to be rising everywhere. All around the town, on the banks of the rivers and up into some of the hills, you can see steam, all day, every day. But that is not all. In some places, the steam actually gushes up into the air at regular, or irregular, intervals. These gushes are called geysers and they happen because the pressure of the hot water below has found an opening of soft rock and the steam can, every so often, escape. In other places you can actually see the water in pools bubbling and when we were at a place called Whakarewarewa, we watched one pool and after about ten minutes the water suddenly rose up about 20 cms, stayed like that for a minute or two, and then went down. We were told this happens every hour.

In some cases the pressure under the ground will force a layer of mud to spurt forth. All of these gases that are bubbling away contain minerals and elements which, when they reach the surface and react with air or water, leave deposits on the surface. In many places around here you can see multi-coloured rocks. These gases are also what give Rotorua its very distinctive smell. The main gas that causes this is sulphur and it smells a lot like rotten eggs. After a while, so the residents say, you tend to get used to it. But, talking of residents, brings me to another point. Nowadays everyone knows what is going on here. Scientists can explain it, although they know they cannot completely predict what is going to happen and when. All of the attractions, where you can walk among these bubbling pools, geysers and hot rocks are checked every day to make sure they are safe. They have to be careful because, quite often the crust can be so soft that it will just collapse and a big crater will form.

Now, think of the first Maori who came here. How did they know which bits to walk on, where to build their villages and what would collapse next? I think we learned from Whakarewarewa village, which has been there among the hot pools and springs for over 160 years that, the Maori watch nature very carefully and, through experience, observation and traditional knowledge they can see and understand things really well. How many Maori were hurt or even killed in those first few years we don’t really know but it must have been quite strange to them. Thinking about it, the whole idea of living there seems quite strange to me today. When the pool at Whakarewarewa begins to rise you can feel the earth tremble beneath your feet; when you walk in some places you can put your hand on the ground and the earth is really hot; when you think that there is a geyser maybe waiting to push through the earth right below your feet, then you really know you are living among nature. It’s quite amazing and I hope the pictures show something of that feeling to you.

It is quite difficult to come to terms with the fact that every day when you wake up steam is rising from the ground, the rivers and it goes on all day. We get very blinkered in our own lives and never really think about the different conditions that other people live in and when we actually see them we think how strange. But to these other people, this is normal and my life is strange. I suppose, well actually I know, that this was why I wanted to put the project together. To create a greater awareness of different lifestyles across our world and, not only the lifestyles but also the environment that helps to create that way of life. In this way we can all understand and appreciate normality in any given locality. As proof of this, even the smell of sulphur that you notice as soon as you drive into Rotorua, becomes everyday after a while.

But you can not be so complacent about other things. The land around here is dangerous and highly volatile. Despite the best efforts of scientists and experts, nature is not predictable. This is the opposite, in temperature terms, of the Franz Josef glacier. There the ice was moving and each day the walk on the glacier was different. Here the gases and water under the earth’s crust are looking for ways to escape and new geyser may erupt at any time or an old one, which has been dormant, may suddenly burst into life. Craters may appear as the pressure proves too much for the thin crust and it collapses. Depending on the minerals being deposited, and their reaction to the other natural gases in our atmosphere, the pools formed will have different colours.

It is a most amazing feeling to be among this type of activity. My girlfriend was always interested in people, what they think, how they feel, why they do things. I always had a different view. Yes I like people, I am one, but I just love nature, the big wide world we live in and I just look around in complete wonder of all that goes on. Of course people have to react with nature and this interests me too and here, in Rotorua, I found quite a few of these things interesting. The very first settlers here, the Maori, worshipped and respected nature. They had gods who they believed created all of nature. What did they think their god was doing when water shot into the air? How did it feel to walk on very hot ground? Why did water in pools rise and fall.

And this brings me on to a delightful story from the village of Whakarewarewa. Whakarewarewa Thermal Village has been in existence for well over 150 years. In fact, when the volcano at Mount Tarrawera erupted in 1886, the displaced villages were offered a place at Whakarewarewa. The village sits on very active geothermal area. Long before the start of the 20th century, the villagers were taking tourists across the narrow stream that divides their village from the rest of the land around Rotorua. Nowadays there is a bridge but back then visitors picked their way across stepping-stones making a small payment to their host. Once the bridge was built they threw their loose change into the river and nowadays young children can be seen diving from the bridge into the icy water, yes some water around here is cold.

Although a fantastic tourist attraction the village is a real live one and some 50 or so people call it home and live there permanently. They have their own natural open-air, nature warmed baths and are also constantly aware of the changing landscape. If you visit you will be treated to a cultural performance and can taste a traditional hangi meal cooked in naturally formed steam vents. From the village you can also view the Prince of Wales Feathers geysers, so-called because the spout looks like the fanning out of the feathers in the royal coat of arms. When we went there we taken around by a lady known simply as Auntie Chris.

She told us that the locals still use the hot water pool for cooking their corn and eggs, they channel water for their baths and they use the steaming ground holes for cooking their meat and other veggies. Nature fully utilised. Not just utilised though, also cared for. As we walked through the village with Auntie Chris, she took us to one of the pools and when she introduced us to the turquoise pool, hiding under a thick layer of steam, she spoke gently to it, asking it to show us its whole beauty. When she took us to the geyser and it welcomed us with a spray of water, she laughed and said “and hello to you too, now stop it please”

Then she told us another story. The hot pool, in the village rises on a fairly regular basis. Some time before December 2004 it was rising 3-4 times more often. Having noticed this strange activity, she tried to interpret it, using the indigenous knowledge she had gained by sitting around the elders as a small girl and patiently listening to their conversations. “In a Maori world”, she said, “the earth is our mother. The Ring of Fire is her heart; the Asia-Pacific fault is her right arm with arteries. Places on earth are connected like parts of a human body. When I saw these activities here, I knew there would be reaction elsewhere”. She had some visitors at about this time and they told her they were going on to parts of Asia. She warned them against it. She told her son there would be a tsunami or something very soon.

Now you might think this was just a good story from an old lady. In fact when we asked her why she hadn't warned the experts, she just said, “no, would they listen to an old simple women like me”? But then she showed us a letter she had from those visitors thanking her for the warning and saying they had decided to change their travel plans and avoid Asia. In olden times, old people were the only source of knowledge. I‘m getting closer to thinking that is still true. But seriously, they knew and understood things.

Over time, the Maori people came to understand nature and to be able to explain much of what went on. They didn’t, as far as I know, usually try to predict it, but they knew certain events meant certain things. Auntie Chris knew things were changing in her world and that meant things must change elsewhere. If we combine traditional knowledge with our own ability to monitor things then maybe, just maybe, we can understand nature better and, with care, actually save our planet. In some cases man is destroying nature and suffering the consequences; here in Rotorua nature is in control in its own way. We need to respect that. The older generation does and young people must be made to understand it too. With the crust of the earth so thin, even the roots of a flower can shatter the stone. Try this for a break from my writing.

I have for a long time said that children cannot learn history unless they use their imagination and I did a fair bit of that this week. I could see all the thermal activity, the mud pools, the sulphur lake but I wanted to imagine what the first people to see this had felt and how they might have reacted.

There were many other attractions around Rotorua, but I have rambled for too long to include them all. During our stay at the Park Heritage Hotel in Rotorua, we spent an evening at the on-site purpose-built Pohutu Cultural Theatre. The evening begins with a welcoming, in the Hotel Foyer. Two warriors and a young girl greeted us and explained a little bit about the evening. Then we were taken to the theatre and shown to our table. On the table was a selection of seafood, pate and smoked and raw fish as well as fresh bread and infused oils. As we nibbled away the performance began.

The major difference to any other performance we had seen was the stunning and superbly presented backdrop, which gave the feeling of a New Zealand landscape and the old tribal way the Maoris may have lived. We were treated to songs, a demonstration of the poi and a haka where the audience, or a selection of them, were invited to join in. They also demonstrated the traditional Maori game of throwing short sticks to each other. It was perfect entertainment while demonstrating the beauty and skill of Maori culture. For me the highlight was a performance of the song Por Karekare that I first heard some 40 years ago, actually sung by Rolf Harris. I thought it was beautiful then and I still do. Of Rolf Harris I shall say nothing. This is becoming quite a musical blog, because you can hear a version here

After the performance we were then treated to a meal cooked in one of the two traditional ways Maori used to cook, a steam hangi. Here in Rotorua, where every puddle is an oven, the Maori would wrap their food in muslin cloth, or the old equivalent, and leave it in a bubbling natural sulphur pool until it was cooked. At the hotel, they had a steam hangi just outside the theatre. It was a great end to a wonderful evening. If you’re in Rotorua try to catch it. You don’t even have to be a hotel guest to be there.

A few days later we went to the Mitai Maori Village for an evening of culture, food and entertainment and it was brilliant. They picked us up from our accommodation in the town and drove us out to the site. After an informal get together in the eating area, we picked our chief from all the guests and set off into the bush in the dark. It really brought it home to me how different things were in Maori time. You could hear the sounds of nature and people moving but couldn’t really see anything until a Waka (warrior canoe) paddled along the stream that runs through the area. The occupants were wearing traditional Maori dress, which means very little, and after that we were taken into a realistic re-creation of a Maori village.

Firstly, we went through the traditional welcoming where our chief, a Dutchman, so obviously unlikely to keep anything he conquered anyway, was challenged by the villagers. After speeches from both sides the villagers put on a wonderful performance for us showing off their traditional weaponry, dances and songs and explaining about their carvings and tattoos (or ta moko). After this, we returned to the eating area, where a traditional hangi was waiting for us. This was not steam cooked but ground cooked and we had a sneak preview when walking down to the stream earlier. It tasted just as good as it looked and after this we were taken off into Rainbow Springs and a night bush walk.

And then we saw our first live Kiwi. As you may know it is unique to New Zealand, a flightless bird that burrows into the ground. It has loose hair-like feathers and, from what I could see, is pretty speedy when moving but I suppose if you think you are a bird and can’t fly you need to move fast. There was, they said, a real possibility that the kiwi could be extinct by 2015 but it is an icon of New Zealand. It was too quick and too dark to get a photo, but here’s a stone model I saw earlier. I don't think extinction has yet happened.

We also had a bit of excitement by going on a Jet Boat ride. The Jet Boat was invented by Sir William Hamilton because he had a dream of being able to go upstream against the current. I think it was intended to help out farmers get around their farms in the South Island, but things move on and now you can go on a Jet Boat trip up the Waikato River, visit Orakei Korako and then return again.

The boat is known as the Black Jet Boat because it is black and a jet boat but this is the only mundane thing about the whole trip. In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I love speed too and so the trip was great fun for me (note to owner, please can I drive one). It seems far more like driving a rally car than a boat and you can sit next to your driver and watch as he throws the boat at the scenery, his hands just twitching slightly on the wheel.

The whole thing is billed as New Zealand’s only Riverjet thermal safari, so there is more to your day, or three hours anyway, than speeding up and down the river. The trip upstream is slower than the trip back and our driver pointed out some things on the way, and all along the side of the river you could see steam rising from the ground. Eventually we arrived at Orakei Korako, which in Maori means the place of adorning, and is a mixture of superb colours, bubbling hot springs, gushing geysers and a cave. There is the largest silica terrace in New Zealand, known as the Emerald Terrace or Kahariki and the geysers are completely unpredictable. One, Soda Fountain, had been dormant for over 17 years before bursting back into life in 1984. And this is the real beauty of this land. It seems like it has been unchanged for thousands of years but subtle things have been happening, and will continue to change, day by day.

On the trip back you once again swoop around the natural borders of the lake and then, when your driver twirls his finger in the air, he puts the boat into the famous Hamilton 360-degree spin. After that he pauses, looks around and asks if everyone is OK. All those still in the boat and not chewing on their stomachs, smile and say yes and we set off only for him to do it again. Wonderful (now, Mr Owner, can I have that drive please, just once). By the way, for the intelligent among you, the Jet boat is proof of Newton’s Third Law of Motion and we all know what that is don’t we? In case you don’t, it is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So, Mr Owner, your action of letting me drive will have a very positive opposite and equal reaction but you will have to wait to see what that is.

And this week I’m glad to see, we started eating out again, and not just from heated pools. Away from Rotarua, we visited The Harbourside, a really lovely little Brasserie and Bar overlooking the harbour at Tauranga. Actually, over hanging the harbour as part of the seating area, if not all of it, is actually above the water. We went there on a Saturday night and the place was full but there was no sign of any delays to our service at all. All the staff were really friendly and took time to talk as they served. You can see the chefs cooking away with the occasional flash of flame as they flambé something but you know that with all that water around even a little over indulgence with the alcohol will soon be put out.

Food wise I started with chicken livers, a favourite of mine and I was not disappointed, while my girlfriend had the Sushi and Sashimi for an oriental feel, or, I suppose, taste. For the main course I went for Venison loin on braised Shallots, Tarte Tatin, Spinach and Wild Berry Jus. My girlfriend went for the Harbourside Tasting Plate and then, being blonde, discovered she had to eat the food that was on it. There were four separate dishes. She had oysters, seafood paella, crayfish and prawn and Blue Cheese puffs with Blueberry compote. Her eye is quite often larger than her stomach but she managed everything there.

For dessert we combined the dessert tasting plate and Deep fried Ice Cream (don’t even ask), with a hazelnut and coconut crust and hot velvety chocolate sauce. A really wonderful meal in a superb venue and we would like to thank staff and owners for allowing us to sample what they offer. By the way the sign of a really good restaurant is when you find the owner eating there and that is exactly what we did.

And one superb touch is the set of quotes at the side of the menu. Loved them. If they would like to use one of mine then I can say that I appreciate much more the scenery and quality of my food now I am older than that first time my mother fed me. Both scenery and quality were superb at Harbourside.

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