posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terryfrost at 04:16pm on 13/09/2006
terryfrost at 04:16pm on 13/09/2006We're back in Auckland for our last full day of NZing. queen_nephthys has herself a new duty free digital camera and I have a very cheap PS2 game. The drive back from Taupo was taken along the back roads, not too far away from the tourist trap that is Hobbiton. We did no LOTR touristing this trip. More into Maori culture, historic stuff and buying t-shirts with the words to an haka on them. This morning as we were packing the car in Taupo, over the fence, the Maori guys in the Marae next door were getting a hangi ready. The stones were heated, the baskets of food were laid on them and they were at the stage of laying the hessian sacks over the baskets, soaking them down with water and shovelling dirt over the lot to seal the oven. By lunchtime, they will have had a feast for dozens of people. Yum.
At 7 am local time tomorrow, we flit off for Brisbane, then Melbourne and back to mundane reality without Hooked On Maori CDs playing as we rip along highways surrounded by green hills and lakes of magnificent aspect and clarity. (Side note, last night we walked along the shore of Lake Taupo. You know you're in a seismic and volcanically active country when the wind washes up pebbles of pumice stone on the beach. End of digression.) The whole nine days has been wonderful. Some of the weather was a bit moist but what the hell.
queen_nephthys has herself a new duty free digital camera and I have a very cheap PS2 game. The drive back from Taupo was taken along the back roads, not too far away from the tourist trap that is Hobbiton. We did no LOTR touristing this trip. More into Maori culture, historic stuff and buying t-shirts with the words to an haka on them. This morning as we were packing the car in Taupo, over the fence, the Maori guys in the Marae next door were getting a hangi ready. The stones were heated, the baskets of food were laid on them and they were at the stage of laying the hessian sacks over the baskets, soaking them down with water and shovelling dirt over the lot to seal the oven. By lunchtime, they will have had a feast for dozens of people. Yum. At 7 am local time tomorrow, we flit off for Brisbane, then Melbourne and back to mundane reality without Hooked On Maori CDs playing as we rip along highways surrounded by green hills and lakes of magnificent aspect and clarity. (Side note, last night we walked along the shore of Lake Taupo. You know you're in a seismic and volcanically active country when the wind washes up pebbles of pumice stone on the beach. End of digression.) The whole nine days has been wonderful. Some of the weather was a bit moist but what the hell.
mellow
There are no comments on this entry. (Reply.)