8-11-19 - Could you live in a sustainable, thermal village?
Day 56.
Today is a day trip to visit TEWHAKAREWAREWATANGAOTEOPETAUASWHAHIAO.
Our guide tells us that the name is 37 characters which is not even the longest name of a village (there is one with 84 characters). They shortened the name to 13 letters with Whakarewarewa but apparently that was too much so they go by the Whaka people. The Whaka people are descendants of the Maaori and live in a sustainable thermal village. There are only ~25 families / 70 people living in the village.
There are geothermal hotsprings everywhere in the village with steam pouring out of them. The Whaka have figured out how to cook all their food using the natural heat from the hot springs. We are given a tour of the village and al the facets of village life.
It turns out our guide is the future chief of the village. He is the oldest born son of his generation in the village so the chief mantle will pass to him (in couple years he hopes). As the oldest natural born son, he was given by his parents to his grandparents to be raised.
Our guide tells us about how a volcano that erupted in Italy caused one of their water pools in their New Zealand village to sink three feet into the ground. It turned out the volcano was on a fault line that ran into the Ring of Fire that their village is situated on. It was very chaos theory, a butterfly flaps its wings causes a tsunami half way across the world.
After the tour, we attend a Whaka family dance and show. The family has six people and they do a love dance as well as a war dance. They are very into bulging their eyes and wagging their tongue. We get a picture with them after the show.
For lunch, we have a geothermal hangi meal. All the food is grown in the village and cooked in the natural hot springs. We have corn, chicken and potatoes and it is delicious. I consider the merits of having a geothermal hot spring installed in my back yard upon return but decide it’s not terribly feasible in Los Angeles.
In the afternoon, Leanne, the girls and John go to the Zealong Tea Estate to learn about the history of tea and have afternoon tea. I never realized afternoon tea was such a popular event across the world.
Tomorrow, Brendan is flying back to the US for fall semester of Senior year at UAB. We discover that his flight is at 7:35am while our flight is at 8:30pm. Hamilton is a 2 hour drive from Auckland airport so we devise the optimal plan that we will all pack tonight, get up at 3:30am, check-out, drive to Auckland airport, drop Brendan off and spend the day in Auckland. So we have our final family dinner at the house and turn in early.