Wellington, NZ By Allison

 Hello! I went to the thermal springs/Māori village today, and walking past it was without a doubt it was the worst experience of my entre life. It was absolutely disgusting and it made me sick. The water gave off the smell of sulfur and in multiple places it was very strong, so I would not recommend it if you are sensitive to smells. The water was being heated by the rocks underground and it reached 100 degrees Celsius! The Māori people use the water for cooking food and bathing. To cook some food they use a box then trap the steam inside it and let the food cook inside. Sometimes they also put the food in a potato sack and drop it in the water to let it cook. For bathing, the water is very hot so they let it trickle down a stream for a while to let it cool down before it gets put into a tub-like thing. 

I also went to a Māori culture show and watched a war dance. The culture show was amazing to watch but I forget most of the stuff I learned. The war dance was super cool because they would be throwing sticks around and not have to look to catch them and it was super cool to watch! The Māori people get tattooed on their faces. The girls get only their chins and the boys can get their full face but not all at once. The tattoos mean so many different things, and the forehead is the last thing to get tattooed because it means that you have all the knowledge. The Māori people were very simple in the olden days so if it flew it was a bird. That is why the forehead tattoos is a bat. I found it super funny how at the Rotorura airport there was no security that anyone needed to get through and they only needed to see one passport! 

One of my family members requested that I do a post on a native animal so here it is! The animal that I will be posting about is the kiwi bird. 

Habitat: Kiwi birds live in grassland areas and forested areas that are normally wet and steep. It is not able to fly and hide from animals so it uses the steepness and wetness to camouflage.

Food: Insects, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, berries, and plants

Defence: Kiwi birds have extremely sharp claws that they are not afraid to use. They also have very strong kicks that you should not underestimate.

 Predators: Stoats were introduced to New Zealand in 1879 to control rabbits, but they found out that kiwi chicks were an easier target. A really big target to kiwis are dogs because kiwis don’t have breastbone so even a small nudge could possibly kill them. Imagine if you didn’t have a ribcage and how easy to damage your heart and lungs would be.

        

The Māori culture show

At the start some of the Māori people rode down in a canoe 

while holding torches and singing songs 

The thermal springs

More pictures of the thermal springs

The Māori people served the tour group corn and it was delicious! 

I found it amazing how they cooked the corn in the thermal pools!

The traditional way of cooking food the Māori way:

It is a box with the steam from the thermal pools rising up and cooking the food.

The thermal pools

Bringing the corn up to serve