Hakka with the Maori
07 September 2017 | Lake Aniwhenua, New Zealand
A short drive out to the Lady Knox geyser, where we had a short but very entertaining presentation about the history of how it was discovered, we also had a stop off at some mud springs which smelled of rotten eggs ๐ณ but strangely enough I heard a few people saying that they liked the smell, strange, as they say nowt such as folk. Then another short bus ๐ ride to the Wai-O-Tapu thermal formations, where we had yet another walk round even more geothermal springs, in this case they were so many different colours and smells with steam drifting and wafting around which was causing all the camera lenses to mist up causing a few problems getting just the right picture. We had to wait for our guide to come by and pick us up. Oo our way to our stop for the night we visited some ancient Maori cave carvings the different meanings and explanation was fascinating. We then carried on to our digs for the night at a fantastic bed and breakfast called, Lake Aniwhenua it was with traditional Maori food which is called 'hangi' the idea is to super heat coals in a hole in the ground then all at the same time they layer firstly pork then on top chicken ๐ then both potatoes ๐ฅ and sweet potatoes finally the stuffing sits at the top. They then place damp cloths and finally cover it all with soil and let it cook for just over 2 hours. Now let me tell you the smells when it was being unwrapped was outstanding it smelt good enough to eat, if the smells were good then the taste was scrumptious and amazing both at the same time, everything was cooked to perfection, the meats just melted in my mouth ๐. Afterwards we had a story telling period for us to better understand the Maori traditions just before our dinner some of us learnt how to perform the Hakka using a stick for better hand eye coordination. Quite a few beers flowed through the evening because my bar bill was rather large the next morning.