After our delicious lunch by the lake, we headed to the Buried Village, which the owner of our hotel had recommended.
The Buried Village is the site of a Māori village that was buried in boiling mud from a volcanic eruption in 1886. What happened was that the volcano erupted, but a lot of the subterranean heat also went over to a nearby lake and ended up coming out that way - hence, the mud. Anyway, so then it was abandoned, and now it is a tourist attraction.
I realize that this is a somewhat overwhelming map, but I had a lot of things to label on it, so hopefully that's okay. What I find impressive about this is the distance that the boiling mud travelled to get from the lake (orange circle) to the village (yellow circle). That's a long way!
Also, please note that I have oriented the map the way they had it labeled at the museum, which turns out to be a mistake, because North, you will notice, is where West should be. Sorry about that.
This is an artist's depiction of the eruption. Notice the multiple eruption sites, as well as the grey mud starting to come up from the lake in the distance.
A lot of people died in this event, and I think that this painting captures the ominous, threatening impression of the beginning of it all, leaving you to imagine the destruction and terror once it got to the villages.
This is an artist's depiction of the pink terraces (in the pink circle on the map). These were a huge tourist attraction pre-eruption, and were apparently stunning. People paid a lot of money for transportation to get there, and then for the privilege to draw or paint them.
If you look on the map at the lake around them, you will see a darker blue area within the larger light blue area. The dark blue is where the lake was before the eruption, and the light is its current area. So the terraces are underwater now. Unfortunately, not only did this mean that we couldn't see them, it also resulted in many hilarious (not) jokes from our tour guide about how we should have planned ahead and brought a submarine.
Note: J's favourite video game (Guild Wars), has recreated these terraces in part of its virtual world, so J gave me a virtual tour after, which slightly mediated my disappointment. Slightly.
This is a depiction of what some of the wreckage looked like after the event.
This is the home of the village blacksmith at the time. Notice the 5-6 feet of mud all around it. I tried to imagine that much boiling mud falling out of the sky, but my imagination fell short.
This is the whare (house) of the village Tohunga (Priest), Tuhoto Ariki.
He predicted that something awful was going to happen to their village, and he was right. During the eruption, the boiling mud fell on his whare and broke part of the roof, trapping him inside. Unfortunately, due to Māori beliefs at the time, his prediction meant that he was somewhat blamed for the event. The villagers believed that if they touched him, they would bring upon themselves the horror that had been brought upon him, so they left him trapped in his whare for four days! Eventually, the pākehā (non-Māori Kiwis) came and dug him out and took him to the hospital in Rotorua. This was a mixed blessing, however, because the Māori believed that Tohunga (Priests) should not be touched, and the pākehā doctors bathed him as part of their treatment, which was a horrible dishonor for him. In addition, they cut off all of his hair (for sanitation), which was deeply degrading and disgraceful. He had no dangerous wounds or diseases, but died soon after these events, and his Māori community believe that he died of a broken heart and spirit.
I find this story deeply tragic on many levels, and wish that all cultures and people were better at knowing how to respectfully care for one another.
On a much brighter note, we learned that Māori build living whare (houses)! If you cut down a fern tree (not a silver fern tree, because they're sacred) right at the base of the trunk and quickly "replant" it as part of your walls or roof, it will take root and keep growing! Also, NZ fern trees have partially hollow trunks that catch seeds from lots of other plants. As a result, these other plants start to grow (as you see in this picture). This accomplishes two tasks; insulation and camouflage. The little plants grow in between the fern tree trunks, making it wind/cold proof. The houses are built into the environment (in this picture, into the side of a hill, but often into the forest), and when the plants grow all over it, it blends back into the forest, so enemies can't find you! Wow!
Note #1: Most whare are not nearly as short as Tuhoto Ariki's house in the previous picture.
Note #2: Māori have different whare for different purposes. This is a picture of a whare moe (sleeping house), which is a very important one to be camouflaged. There is also a whare kai (eating house), a whare wānanga (school), whare whakairo (meeting house), etc. The whole village would do lots of things together in the different whare, instead of each whanau (family) doing all these things in their individual homes.
As a part of our walk around the Buried Village, we took a little side trek to see this beautiful waterfall. It doesn't look very big in the picture, but it was quite impressive. We also got to see a charming stream that was full to bursting with beautiful rainbow trout, but they were far too fast swimmers for my picture-taking skills. It was very exciting to see them all, though.
After the tour and our independent wanderings, we went to the Green Lake/Lake Rotokakahai (in the green circle on the map). We were told that the level of actual greenness depended greatly on the weather and colour of the sky, and I have to say that we might not have been there on the best day. However, it was still beautiful, and definitely green.
Next, we went just around the corner to the Blue Lake/Lake Tikitapu (in the blue circle on the map). It is definitely blue, but not impressively more so than other lakes, in our opinions.
Also, I just noticed that the clouds apparently ended over the Green Lake (notice the grey sky in the picture) and left clear, blue sky over the Blue Lake! How funny! It was one of those fickle days that couldn't decide how many clouds it wanted, so that is not too surprising, but it sure is a striking difference between those two pictures.
We were quite tired after our horse trek and on-foot explorations, so we headed back to Rotorua, relaxed for a bit, and then went out to dinner before more lazy relaxing. It was a great day.
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