Whakapapa Ski Resort On a Summer's Day

 

Whakapapa Ski Area on the north-western slopes of Mt Ruapehu is New Zealand's largest ski area. The drive to the ski resort was astounding, the view was spectacular as far as the eye could see.  It was summer when we visited and it was too windy and cloudy to ride the ski lift so the next best thing was to eat lunch at the Lorenzs' Bar and Café and sight see the valley below.  On a cloudy, windy and misty summer's day, I cannot help but think of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.

A Summer's Day

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Mt. Ruapehu - A Maori Love Story

 

Mt. Ruaphue and the surrounding valley was visually stunning. There is a lot of moss at Mt. Ruaphue and it is endangered and very old. It is is the tallest mountain in the North Island and very sacred lands to the local Maori Iwi (tribes).  Scenes from The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey was filmed at Mt. Ruaphue. They had to construct a scaffolding to protect the moss and other plants.

Maori Legend of Mounts Ruapehu and Taranaki (Egmont)

 

Ruapehu, the beautiful maid, was married to Taranaki. One day, while her husband was away hunting, she was wooed and won by Tongariro. When Taranaki returned at the end of the day he surprised the guilty pair. A titanic battle ensued in which Taranaki was defeated. He retreated towards the west coast, carving out the course of the Wanganui River as he went. When he reached the coast he moved northwards to the western extremity of the North Island, where he rested. Taranaki, now sits in silence looking towards his wife and his rival. In spite of her infidelity, Ruapehu still loves her husband and sighs occasionally as she remembers him, while the mist, which drifts eastward from his head, is the visible sign of Taranaki's love for her. For his part, Tongariro, who despairs of ever possessing her again, smokes and smoulders with anger.

A Rainy Taranaki Falls Track

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When you are on vacation and you have a tight schedule, you don't allow rain to get in your way.  Taranaki Falls Track was hiked on a cloudy and rainy day.  The track is a two-hour loop that starts from Whakapapa Village to Taranaki Falls. The falls is on the Wairere Stream. Visibility was very poor but it made some interesting photos with hanging clouds, foggy overlooks and misty streams.

'A Room With A View' Whakapapa Village

This was the back deck from our room at Whakapapa Village.  Mt. Tongariro is the large mountain in the above photo.  Taranaki Falls Trail started at the Village. There were only two places to eat and there were no shops. The view was spectacular in all directions.

Quotes from "Room with a View" by E.M. Forster

“It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.”

“When I think of what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.”

   

“The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View  

  

E.M. Forster (1879 - 1970), was an novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society.
 He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.

The Majestic Clouds of Mt. Ngauruhoe aka Mount Doom

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the view from our hotel room at Whakapapa Village in Tongariro National Park.  Mt. Ngauruhoe was Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings.  They filmed quite a lot of the Mount Doom scenes in Lord of the Rings, such as Sam carrying Frodo up the cliffs. It is a conical, single-vent volcano with perfectly symmetrical slopes.  Due to rainy weather and approaching storms, the clouds would eventually cover Mt. Ngauruhoe with their hues of pink and golden fingers.

 

Mount Doom From Lord of the Rings

 



Orakei Korako 'The Hidden Valley' and the Mudcake Cafe'

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orakei Korako 'The Hidden Valley'  is a highly active geothermal area most notable for its series of fault-stepped sinter terraces, located in a valley north of Taupo on the banks of the Waikato River. It was an extraordinary spectrum of rainbow colors, gushing geysers, and bubbling mud pools.  My friend Nancy and I ate at the Mudcake Cafe' which has stunning views of the Waikato River. One of the reasons we selected to visit the park because it is located off the beaten track between Taupo and Rotorua and there were very few tourist or local visitors there.  No crowds and the country drive was enjoyable. I felt like this was the real New Zealand.
The park has had some famous visitors. The Hobbit cast including Director Peter Jackson, Actors  Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Richard Armitage and Sir Ian McKellen visited the park during the filming of The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey.

An Advanture of Glow Worms and a Maori Powhiri Ceremony

 

 

 

At the Mitai Maori Village we got to experience a natural bush setting, and see warriors in traditional dress paddle an ancient warrior canoe (waka) down the Wai-o-whiro stream. We also saw glow worms in their natural habitat.

The Maori Village is a 15 minutes drive from Rotorua.  It was about a 4 hour tour and dinner. We saw a performance from the warriors of the ancient Maori and experience the powhiri (welcome ceremony).  They did a powerful display of haka song and dance before we dine on a traditional hangi feast, where the food was cooked slowly beneath the ground in earth ovens. It was a very interesting and enjoyable experience.

Story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai at Mokoia Island

 Sir George Grey's ‘Polynesian Mythology’, first published in 1855.

Story of Hinemoa and Tutanekai

"Hinemoa was the daughter of a great chief who lived at Owhata, on the shore of Lake Rotorua. She was very beautiful, and because of her beauty and her high rank, many young men desired her as a wife. One of these was Tutanekai, but he knew that though he was of good birth, his rank was not high enough for Hinemoa's father to accept him as his daughter's suitor.
So for a long time Tutanekai hid his love. He saw Hinemoa only when there were great meetings of the tribe, for his home was far across the water, at Mokoia Island in the middle of the lake. When the people gathered together he would content himself with gazing at Hinemoa from a distance, and yet it seemed to him that sometimes she would return his looks. But he thought to himself, ‘There are many other young men more worthy than I of winning Hinemoa's heart. If I approach her to declare my love, perhaps she will be displeased.’
Now Hinemoa did love Tutanekai, but she too hid her love, thinking, ‘If I send a message to Tutanekai, perhaps he will not care for me’.
At last, after many meetings at which their eyes only had spoken, Tutanekai sent a messenger to Hinemoa, and when she had heard him, Hinemoa cried joyfully, ‘Have we each then loved alike?’ Then Tutanekai asked Hinemoa to leave her home and come to him, and to this she agreed.
‘At night’, he said, ‘when you hear the sound of a flute across the water, it is I; come in your canoe’.
Every night Tutanekai sat on a high hill and played his flute, and the wind bore his music far across the lake to Hinemoa's home. But Hinemoa did not come. Her people had suspected her intention, and they had pulled all the canoes high up on the shore. Every night Hinemoa heard the sound of her lover's flute, and wept because she could not go to him. Then she thought at last, ‘Would it be possible to swim?’ She looked at the wide water and her heart failed her; but then she heard the flute again and knew that she must go.
continue Story
It is believed that their descendants are living at Rotorua to this day.