Millie and I spent the morning playing “shop”. She made fake paper money and then invited me into her “everything store” that she set up in the garage. I mostly requested paintings and she delivered.

We set off for the village at about 11 and arrived in time to get tickets for their daily performance. As I’ve written before, I always have mixed feelings about these ~cultural visits~. There is something strange about tourists gawking at a different way of life. But we learned today that the Maori people have a long history (hundreds of years) of welcoming tourists.

The performance blew me away. They did the traditional Haka battle cry, and then transitioned right into joyful singing. The songs were bops, and all the performers had incredible voices. Millie happily sat without wiggling for the whole 45 minutes.

After this was done we set off on a tour of the village. This is an active village with many people living there. The main focus were the thermal pools that the village sits on, and how their tribe has used it for health and cooking. They continue to use it today for bathing and cooking.

Our guide cooked us corn on the cob in the boiling pool. First and probably only time I’ll have corn cooked by the center of the earth.

We learned all about their history, language, and traditions. Millie was into it the whole time. So much so that the guide commented on how well behaved she was. We were very proud.

From here we drove about 5 minutes to the redwood forest. We had to buy entry tickets to walk the canopy. Nothing in NZ is free and it’s all so expensive. I’m trying to be chill about it because we are on the tail end of the trip and doing okay budget wise, but this will definitely come out as our most expensive country.

These trees were brought here from California 100 years ago, and are already massive. This area of NZ is the same distance to the equator as Sequoia, so a similar climate but much wetter. Perfect weather for these trees to thrive.

It was drizzling but we were mostly protected by the trees. I wish this blog had smell-o-vision because it all smelled like wet pine. I managed to ignore my fear of heights as we bounced around in the trees.

I loved the way the giant ferns looked from above.

It started raining harder so we made a run for the car. We stopped at the grocery store on our way back to get a few things for dinner and dessert.

Millie and I baked a cake using the feijoa fruits we got at the farm yesterday, and I made a big healthy dinner. It has been a nice break to avoid restaurants while we’ve been here in Rotorua.

We had a great evening. Nothing special, just one of those nights where everything felt right. Millie played DJ and chose the soundtrack to the Parent Trap, which actually is great dinner music. She and Nick played some cards while I cleaned up. Then we practiced our absolutely terrifying Maori Haka faces. Internet photo for reference. Emoji coverup for Millie who was fresh from the shower.