Day 5 - Geezers and villages

So early morning today leaving at 8:30 and headed of to the (for lack of some better words) "tourist park" called te pui. We dropped into the tourist office in town before going to the park because the tickets were cheaper. On yesterday's walk we had looked down on this park so we knew what to expect. Once inside we headed straight for the kiwi house. Kiwis are sooo cute!!!! They are about chicken size with amazingly long beaks. It was dark inside the house but we could still see the kiwis well enough after we got rid of the other tourists. It was so amazing to finally see the legendary kiwi. After this we walked around the park seeing multiple bubbling mud pools and a geezer which at this time only had a small constant squirt of water coming out of it which wasn't impressive at all. Naturally it smelt very sulfury... Everywhere but you get use to it. 

We had to get to the start for our cultural experiance by 10:00 so we didnt get to look at a huge amount of the park on our first run. The cultural experiance was a performance by 7 Maori people, three ladies and four men. The performance was good starting with a traditional welcoming dance and song where everyone had to sit down in their chairs. (I'm probably about to offend a few people sorry) The majority of the audience was off an Asian bus tour and there was one REALLY annoying Chinese man with a camera who didn't give a crap about anyone else. In the first song he moved around the hall blocking people's veiw with his camera. The performance was good but the music seemed... A bit modern. They askedfor volunteers in two spots in the performance, one for the ladies in which Kate got picked and had to try and learn how to swing a poi and dance with it. A poi is a string with two balls at either end. The second spot was for men  and they had to do the haka naturally everyone in my family pointed at me to get picked for this..., i hate my family!!!!! It was so awkward!!! Anyway after this we went back to the volcanic spring and did a "stroll" around the park. Nothing worth mentioning on the walk except I had a really nice talk with cousin James. Once we finally made it home I collapsed on to my bean bag. Kate, James and aunty Al went horse ridding and mum Morgan and dad went shopping.

We were on dinner tonight and cooked veggie fajitas which are burritos but with the mince replaced with a bean mix. It was very nice. We watched the othe half of the hobbit and went to bed at about 10;00

I'm sooo tried 

Alastair