Rotorua Day 2
This morning, after breakfast we planned to back to the “Bath House” and take a tour of the museum. The building itself was built in the English Tudor style, with black exposed timber on the outside of the building.
As money is always a problem for people starting a new business, this building was designed to be built in stages, with the central administration section first, then the gentleman’s baths, followed by the women’s baths. However while it was able to generate the projected income from the rich wanting to take the “Cure,” they were not able to control the costs. The maintenance costs kept escalating. It appeared that while Sulphur was good at healing skin conditions (it is still used today) it was very damaging to the building materials used when the bath house was built.
Costs also were not contained in the building, as all fittings and decorations used were expensive, as it was thought that the “bath house” had to have the best of the best, to attract the real rich people who could pay all the expensive expenses.
Unfortunately the business never generated enough profits to complete stage 3, the ladies wing, and eventually it closed, as a failed business (there are now more modern and modest places in Rotorua that operate under medical supervision treating skin problems in much the same way)
We stayed here for lunch before proceeding to a Maori village “Te Puia” which is built on the edge of a “Geothermal Area.” This village is also the centre for Maori Cultural Education! Here Maori youth are taught the different aspects of Maori Culture, not only their traditions, but also the traditional arts like, Weaving, Carving and art!
The first part of our visit was a traditional welcome with a “Haka” followed bu an invitation to join the chief inside the “Marae,” for a display of Maori dancing performed by some of the youth being trained at the village/ These young people were all dressed in traditional clothing made by the youths themselves. Because we were again able to organise a wheelchair for mum we were given a place of honour, right in the front row og the meeting house.
After enjoying an hour show we continued our tour of the thermal area. Sulphur steam was everywhere. Then we had our first glimpse of a boiling mud pool, it was fenced off so that we could not enter it, which would not have been a wise thing to do, as the mud here was 100 °Celsius the temperature of boiling water and it had the consistency of quicksand, which meant we would sink into it and be boiled to death if we tried to cross it.
From here we proceeded to a “Geyser,” which when we first saw it, it was just a lot of steam rising from the ground, but soon as pressure built up naturally, water started to come out this developed into full water jet just like a fountain, only extremely hot, boiling in fact, all evidence that the north Island of New Zealand is very volcanic in nature.
Finally our tour took us to the rooms in which the youth were taught the traditional skills of carving and weaving, to see the items they were producing. We stayed here looking at their artwork, not only in the classrooms but also in their shop until closing time before returning to our hotel for some dinner and well earned rest.
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