Tauranga, New Zealand

We had a cloudier day for our visit to Tauranga yesterday. There is a major cyclone heading towards New Zealand and everyone has been keeping a sharp eye on it and where it might hit the islands.

Our shore excursion for the morning was called “Highlights of Māori Culture”. There was a complex welcoming ceremony all our our tour group took part in. I’ve posted pictures of the handouts that explain, in depth, what we did. We couldn’t take pictures because we were in the sacred Meeting House.

It was a very special experience and our group sang the song on the first page of the handout. We actually echoed what our guide sang, but it was still very moving. The only part of the ceremony that didn’t occur was the Hongi greeting. The touching of noses and foreheads was a victim of Covid protocols, so we shook hands instead with a squirt of hand sanitizer to follow.

After the ceremony, we headed over to the social hall where we had coffee or tea (served in lovely china cups and saucers) and cookies. There were some craft booths set up for us to shop from if we so desired. The location we were at was not a tourist recreation of Māori living. It is a living breathing village where the tribe gathers for celebrations, funerals and meetings. There is a preschool attached where young Māori children start becoming immersed in Māori culture.

After our time at the village, we were bused over to the Māori high school for a cultural performance presented by some of the students. All of the classes at the school are taught in Māori except English and some of the sciences where the terminology doesn’t easily translate.

This is a lovely school which our guide was rightly proud of. It took a lot of work by the elders to get the school built. Here’s Brian outside the entrance.

The performance was a lot of fun and both Brian and I participated. He learned the Haka and I learned the Poi. I use the term “learned” very loosely.

Here is a photo of Brian. The picture of me is very conveniently, for me, on Brian’s phone.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like.

The Māori shared their most important proverb with us:

He aha te mea nui o te ao
What is the most important thing in the world?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata
It is the people, it is the people, it is the people

After we returned to the ship, Brian headed out for a hike up a mountain and I stayed behind to do laundry. What I did is much less interesting than what Brian did! As we sailed into the bay in the morning we saw this hill:

Brian had heard there was a path to the top where there was an amazing view, so he decided to check it out. The hike was more strenuous than he expected, but he was very glad he did it. He got some lovely photos both during the climb and on the way back to the ship.

We did not have the lovely view off our balcony as we did in other ports. However, we did get a bird’s eye view of provisions being loaded on to the ship.

Before we went to dinner, we headed down to the Shore Excursions desk to see if there was anything available for Wellington, NZ. We were told that none were available. Not five minutes later, the Captain announced that, due to the cyclone I mentioned at the being of this post, all of the remaining ports in New Zealand were cancelled for safety reasons and the possibility of the harbors being closed. We would spend the next four days at sea running away from the storm. Melbourne, Australia has been added to our itinerary and we’ll head on to Sydney from there. This does leave us with an unused amount of New Zealand dollars we will have to exchange for Australian ones when we get to Melbourne.