Rotorua and Beer Tour!

Now that we had seen the fantasy sights of the North Island it was time to see some more traditional parts. We drove to a town called Rotorua that is the centre of the Maori culture. We spent an evening watching traditional Maurie dancing that included the very scary Hakka and even better eating traditional Maori food. In order to cook the food they dig a huge hole, fill it with an even bigger fire, wait for the fire to burn down and then put large stones in. They then wait even more time until the stones are hot and then dowse them with water, throw the food on to them and then bury it all in the ground for 3 hours. It would be so much easier just to have a BBQ on the fire in the first place!

The reason that the town of Roturua is the centre of the Maori culture is largely due to the fact that the area is high in volcanic activity. This activity has resulted in a huge number of Geysers (holes in the ground that super heat water and explode without warning, not some dodgy bloke from London!) and as we were here it would be rude not to go and see some of these fantastic natural wonders. So there we are standing behind a small fence about 20 meters away from the largest geyser in the area, we´ve been told that it hasn´t exploded for a few hours so it should be soon. We wait and wait until we think that our presence has broken it, when all of a sudden there was a huge bang and water (well steam!) shot 50 meters into the air (just for the record I screamed with joy at seeming this sight, not because it had scared me as Ells thinks) and continued to do so for about 20 minutes. It really was like nothing I had seen before in my life and defiantly worth getting soaked by steam for (I can´t believe that Ad hasn´t mentioned how bad the smell was! This was the smelliest place I have ever visited in my life, it absolutely stank of rotten eggs, urghh!!). With all of the culture and amazing things that we had seen it was time to bring the New Zealand trip down a level.

We had heard that the famous Lion brewery in Auckland offered tours. We were happy to find that this was true and in no time found ourselves standing in the bottling section, deafened by the clanking of the thousands and thousands of bottles that were being efficiently boxed and sent to some corner of the country. This was pretty cool but the best was to come! As the tour ended we found ourselves in a large bar with beer taps on both sides. Thinking that this couldn´t possibly be true, we were given a large amount of clean glasses and told to help ourselves to as much and as many of the different beer types that were there. HEAVEN!!!!! (we found out after that all of the workers at the brewery get 3 hours free drinking like this every day in the staff bar. Strangely there is a high alcohol dependency problem and divorce rate at the site!!!!!!!!!)