Rotten eggs, its Rotorua

The town of Rotorua is famous for all its geothermal activity (including geysers and hot mud pools), a valuable resource that the Maori people have been using for years to heat their homes and cook their food. It also meant that whilst walking around you are often hit with a sulphur/rotten egg smell wafting in the air! I visited the village of Whakarewarewa (or Whaka for short) aka the thermal village to learn about the history of the local people have adapted to the hot ground conditions and how they benefit from what the land naturally provides to them. One of the techniques is called the hangi, which is a cooking method, whereby the food is buried in the ground and left for a number of hours to cook using the heat from the ground. I also tried some corn on the cob (you can just see the little yellow blob in the photo) which had been cooked in one of the boiling water hot pools! It was interesting to learn about the Maori traditions and how much emphasis there is on respecting the land that gives them everything they need and protecting resources for their children and future generations. I also learnt a lot from Jacko, who i was staying with. He taught me a lot about the Maori culture and explained how they were affected with the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. We talked a lot about ancestry and the importance of families and i learnt that Jacko was hoping to go back to his ancestral land one day and set up his dream home! I had a little time to walk around the town and also went down to the stunning Lake Rotorua which glistened under the morning sunshine.