MacsTravel Blog

Our last night in Rotorua featured a visit to Te Puia for Māori Kai (food) and cultural storytelling. It was a fabulous evening.

Te Puia is an education centre that Māori from across New Zealand have access to to learn language, traditional skills and culture. It is funded by the Māori tourist industry in this area. Tours, cultural entertainment and education for tourists, dinners, gift shops featuring traditional Māori art (and trinkets) employ many Māori and the spin off to the local economy must be huge. Because of this the educational centre is flourishing and there is a positive impact on maintaining and spreading Māori culture.

The evening started with a buffet dinner featuring some traditional steam cooked Māori Kai. We lucked out with a table overlooking the Bluey Pools geysers.

After dinner we were treated to a traditional Māori welcome, invited into the community hall and enjoyed some cultural entertainment. I’m not going to explain much of what we saw for fear of misrepresenting some key details. We were invited to take pictures throughout.

After the performance we could wander back down to the geysers to enjoy them at night. Absolutely surreal.

The construction of the hall and inspiration for the education centre was due to the man portrayed in the painting hanging at the back of the stage in the pictures. It’s incredible to see the wood carving in the buildings, statuary and the traditional war canoe.

Rotorua certainly exceeded expectations, although two days is probably plenty of time to visit. The geothermal elements are surreal, and it is a fantastic opportunity to learn a bit about Māori culture.

Next stop, Tongariro.