5 Feburary 05-
It turns out that we happened to be in Raglan at the same time as their annual music festival, Sunsplash: An all day, all night outdoor concert that featured numerous New Zealand artists playing a variety of music mostly (and loosely) categorized as Aoteora Roots, with sound somewhere in between reggae and mellow rock. We were camping at the Solscape hostal which sits on top of a hill above the beach and provides stunning views looking west. We headed down to see the show and spent a long day and night dancing and listening to music with friends we'd met at Solscape.

After a quick nap we jumped on the Stray bus at 8am and headed inland again. In about two hours time we arrived at the Waitoma caves. New Zealand is littered with these caves. Since a lot of the surface rock is Limestone (essentially old seafloor - very brittle) the rainwater seeps in and hollows out miles of caves below the surface. We opted to do a tour into the caves, so we dawned wetsuits and mining helmets and took the plunge.

This was definetly not for the claustrophobic! Firts we had to wiggle down a hole not much bigger than our bodies and then we ducked and crawled for several meters before the cave opened up a bit. Inside we encountered a series of small steams and caves. The caves are also home to the Glow worm whose larvae cling to the top of the cave and lower web like strings down like fishing hooks to catch flies. Since the insects have no way of expelling waste they must burn it off and create a fine blue light which also helps to attract the flies. When everyone turned off their headlamps the roof of the cave looked like a starry night - An incredible sight.

Later we crawled down another small cave called "the birth canal" in which our guides suggested that we turn off our light again so that we didn't get freaked out. It was about 10 meters long - truly darkness was my only friend on this endeavor. Creeping in the backgrouns the entire time we were down in the caves - at points as low as 70 meters below the surface - was the possibility of getting kind of creeped about one's predicament, but as long as we focused on all the interesting sites and ignored reality we were fine! Good advice for life in general really.

Later we got showers and got back on the bus headed for the town of Rotorua. The town is situated on a volcanic fault line and because of this, it is a geothermal hotspot - the whole area is a culdera of an ancient, but still active, volcanoe (think Yellowstone). The entire town smells of sulfur and if you walk around barefoot you can feel the dramatic temperature diferences from one spot to the next.

Rotorua is also steeped in the heritage of New Zealand's native people: the Maori (pronounced like Mou-ree). The Maori came to Aoteora (The Maori name for NZ meaning "Island of the Long White Cloud") about a thousand years ago from a mythical island called Hawaiki. The first cheif recognized that there was land here when he spotted the long white cloud that hovered above it, hence the name.

We toured some of the areas sites with our Maori guide, Sollie, who showed us a whare (ancestoral house) and explained a lot about his own lineage and the history of the Maori. With a lot of support from the NZ government Maori culture is experiencing a renaissance of sorts and a lot of the traditions of this people are being preserved.

Later Sollie showed us some of his Moko - a form of tattooing on the body that tells a person's stories and lineage. The final Moko is placed on the face and tells others who you are. We then shared in a hangi - the Maori meal cooked in steam ovens using the hot tempuratures in the earth.

Sunsplash

Sollie leading the men in a ritual dance (can you see Jim?)