Winter 2019 - NZ10 Rotorua to Hawkes Bay

NZ10   Rotorua to Hawkes Bay

Lake Taupo

Today’s trip was about 300 km long. After yesterday’s split group ride when Carol followed the van and I rode the shore line, we both decided to follow Fred today. Especially since at the end of the ride we, the total group, would split up for the night and stay at various homesteads (farms). While the headline on our tour ‘brochure' spelled out Hawkes Bay, in reality we headed towards Taupo. Taupo is a large lake almost in the center of the North Island of NZ. The lake is a water filled caldera of an old volcano. It’s huge and deep.

Mud Pool

And the old volcano is still bubbling right under the lake, still cooks the grounds below us. There are many mud pools, super-heated from below, all around this lake. We visited a mud pool, the mud is grayish, and consists of fluid ashes bubbling away with steam rising out of the earth; with bubbles amidst the mud. The area was all fenced off because the mud in this spot is so hot it would scald anyone trying to enter it, or even get near it. Even animals avoid this spot, but it feels very primeval to see the earth’s power.

(L) Side of the Geothermal Power Plant

There are many hot springs around and there is even the world’s largest Geothermal Power Plant creating electric power from steam captured from the active steam just below the surface. 

We made a stop on a hill over-looking the Wairakei Geothermal Power Plant, one of a few such plants in NZ, and the schematic numbers we saw on the plaques placed near this overlook were amazing. Over 200 million watts are produced here, near Wairakei, near Lake Taupo. 

(R) Side of the Geothermal Power Plant

Large Loops in the Pipes Allow Steam Expansion (and Vehicles to Pass Underneath

The earth’s crust below us is thin; the heat needed to generate this power is just about 600 meters below us.  It feels kind of weird standing right above this source of super heated steam, standing over the center of a volcano below us.

The lake, Lake Taupo, is fed by rivers, rain, snow and runoffs. Fishermen prize these waters for the abundance of fish, especially trout. 

Huka Falls

On the north side of the lake are the famous Huka Falls. This waterfall pours out of the lake and the current is so strong that no ship can navigate this narrow sluice channel. The waters are crystal clear and this spot is a very popular tourist meeting place. We had a bit of a difficult time parking our bikes, it was that crowded. 

Huka Falls

It was a busy day today. 

We never went near the town of Napier. Fred said the traffic around Napier is so bad; he tries to avoid it at all cost. Hmmm, so why is it listed as a destination?

Napier in 1931 was the center of an earthquake. The harbor floor, the bottom of the sea was pushed up above sea level during the quake. The power of the quake was so great that a grave digger, digging in a 6-foot hole nearby, was lifted straight out of the grave. A passerby, fearing the shaking and clinging to something near the cemetery, saw this man rise from below ground, clad only in shorts (it was a hot day). The passerby fainted, believing the Apocalypse had started and the dead were rising from their graves. 

But we never saw any of this; Napier today must be a busy place and a place to be avoided, according to Fred. I guess Fred is not into Art Deco Architecture, since Napier was rebuilt in 1931 with mainly this style of housing.

Part of Our Tour Group on Te Mata Peak

On the way today we passed a very large area of ‘planted' forests. During the depression in the 1930’s men were kept occupied and busy planting these trees. It was similar to the work program of the U.S. or other countries where the Government gave the people civic duties so that they had at least some income during the depression. This forest (Kaingaroa) was planted using trees from the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. To everybody’s surprise the trees grew extremely well. Their growth was two to seven times faster than normal. The work of the 1930’s pays great dividends today. 90% of the domestic use of wood can be handled from these once planted trees. 

Searching the internet, I found that this forest holds some secrets, too.

The Kaingaroa Cave Carvings sure are one of them. Who did these carvings?  Not the Maori, so is all we know about NZ history really correct?

Here is a story about another secret:  

You can hear the oral tradition of the Maori at work.  The names are hard to follow I know, but it’s interesting to me how those long names are spoken. 

And here is a very impressive kind of ‘proof ‘that what I write is just what I am told. So maybe the year 1250 AD as the beginning of Humans on NZ is all wrong?  Well, what do YOU think after seeing this report?

Winter 2019 - NZ10 Just Maori

NZ10   Just Maori

Maori is the story of the Polynesians really. But since we are in the year 1250 AD or so for this page, I spin this yarn thinking about how it was then.

Travelers By Boat

Hokulea is kind of proof that my story is not that farfetched. This ship proved the concept of people using boats, ships to spread themselves out. Similar boats were used even before 1250 AD, before the settlement of NZ. All the Polynesian and/or Micronesian Islands were colonized this way. Some folks think that people all over the world were actually spread by boats of some kind. As a youngster I remember Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki adventure, proving that Egyptians could have settled the Americas. Ah history is so diverse, who knows what is right. 

Let us go back to NZ and the Maori and their story.

Huts Were Simple, Built From Whatever Could Be Found

Carbon dating tells us there were no people on NZ before 1250 AD. None! (Really?)

I can accept the fact that people came by boat from somewhere, but it was not just one man, not even one couple who came, it must have been a bunch of people; even a bunch of boats? And their purpose was to settle someplace, to move on, to find living space. 

So where was the over-population, where were the crowded conditions in 1250 AD? Or was it part of a culture to let one’s young people go to find better, newer land because the land around them was over-fished, over-hunted, deforested or over-planted?  I imagine that people needed more space, had to move on in order to have a future. This happened a lot in history, only one son could inherit the father’s land, so where did his brothers go? Or, like on some Islands like Easter Island, the trees were cut down, the ground no longer yielded a good harvest, etc. and people started to starve. 

So, yes, people who could afford it, moved their youngsters to other places but… they had to find those places. I am sure if someone just came to your house and settled in you would push them out, so those folks without a house have to go somewhere, but where to? Today, in 2019 there are no more unexplored areas, areas to move into. Yes, we have emigration, immigration, etc. and yes, some places are overcrowded. So do we go to Mars next?

Family Enclaves Were Fenced

Voila, the beginning of a trend? A mass spreading out of people who needed space; needed newer, better possibilities than being hungry at home. Again, this happened all through history. The question I have with NZ is, where exactly did those people come from? Where are their roots?  We look at their languages and we can tell today that most of the Polynesian Micronesians have a basic root language. We don’t know who else speaks like them, we are not smart enough to decipher heritage by language alone. 

So the next level to search for the roots of all Polynesians is a DNA analysis. And all signs today point to Taiwan. Wow, I did not know that!  Certainly, people mixed with other people when they encountered them. So all DNA is kind of lopsided, but it helps to look at DNA.

Totems Depicting Maori Gods

So the first boat to come to NZ finds a very, very large mass of land totally empty of other humans. And there are no wild animals around. Just put yourself in their shoes for a moment. What do you do? You plant some of your plants you brought with you, hoping the seedlings you carried will grow here, but you find out not all of the seeds you have make it through the growth cycle. You might even have had some domesticated animals with you (pigs?) and it took some time to ‘grow' those. The newcomers first settled along the shores of the ocean, they could eat fish and sea animals, find plants, find mussels, clams and made a living so to speak. What amazes me is that within the next 50 years a few other boats arrived from? Did they communicate by going back to the ‘old' spot they came from?  How did they get back?  Where was it? 

Other Totems Depict Warriors

Ah, their mystic stories tell of a place called Hawaiki where all departed souls return. Back to their homeland, back to where the Maori originated. 

So was this the place where all the boats started, where the Maori came from? It’s just intriguing to think about. It’s food for anthropologist, and related sciences. 

The Maori who live in NZ today are modern folks. Most are very proud of their heritage and I can understand their point of view.  Their culture was developed way before Capt. James Cook came to NZ in about 1769. They had little in common with Christianity, with Western thinking and even their art was very different. Their representation of 6 of their gods is one of the best examples I know. The depiction of their gods was simple, elegant, and different. To the point where no Western mind could comprehend it at first. Maori, the people of the four winds in the land of the long white cloud, are teaching us, even today, that being different and having a different belief is an OK thing.

The God Sticks, See Link Above For Their Meaning