Whakarewarewa is a unique Maori village, set amidst geysers and hot pools.  The people of Tuhourangi/Nagti Wahiao have lived here for over 200 years and have learned to adapt to their surroundings, using the geothermal features to cook and bathe. They live in harmony with their natural environment. They understand and respect their land. There is much to be learned from them.

Visitors to this one-of-a-kind village can mingle with the villagers and hear stories that have been passed down through the generations from the knowledgeable guides – most of whom either live in the village or are connected to it through whanau (family). They can also participate in many interactive activities such as weaving, music, weaponry and more.

This year, at TRENZ, the village is promoting its not-to-be-missed Cultural Hangi Pie Experience. Visitors indulging in the Cultural Hangi Pie Experience will enjoy a guided tour, a cultural performance and a plated hangi lunch. 

Beautiful land, beautiful people. And then there are those of us who are fortunate enough to visit this amazing place and who often find it very hard to leave.

I recently had the chance to learn more about Glen Aros – a classic New Zealand country estate, set in the foothills surrounding the wine-growing region of Hawke’s Bay. Everything I heard makes me want to go there.

From its beautifully secluded location, Glen Aros is only a short drive to the many world-class attractions of this diverse region – including wineries, winery restaurants, the lovely Art Deco city of Napier, fishing and golf. As a fully-serviced lodge, Glen Aros is ideal for high-end FIT travellers or small groups of friends can have exclusive use of the lodge. And the weather there is fantastic!

Luxury Accommodation
At Glen Aros, travellers enjoy a 5-star Guest & Hosted Qualmark Luxury accommodation with 24-hour concierge. Six spacious bedrooms, each with a super king-sized bed and a modern ensuite bathroom, are available for single or double occupancy. Tasteful furnishings lend individuality to every room and enhance the original character of this elegant Hawke’s Bay estate. Quiet, independent climate control assures your comfort winter or summer, throughout the house.

Dining
Enjoy creative meals prepared by their on-site chef, with an emphasis on fresh, natural foods and local produce. Menus can be arranged to suit your preferences. Choose a wine from their extensive cellar of carefully selected New Zealand and international vintages.

At TRENZ 2011, Glen Aros is promoting the incredibly talented Nigel Marriage – a top chef with Michelin star experience. He is classically trained and has worked as Head Chef in some of the finest restaurants in Europe and New Zealand, including Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, John Burton-Race’s (of French Leave fame), The New Angel in Devon and Eight Point Two in Birkenhead Auckland.

Nigel enjoys using the vegetables and herbs from the kitchen garden at Glen Aros along with the wealth of locally grown produce available at the well-known Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Market and the nearby port in Napier. The Glen Aros garden also has an olive grove and a vast range of fruit trees, including greengage plums, guavas, pomegranates, persimmons, figs, feijoas, gooseberries, black currants, apricots, artichokes and walnuts.

It sounds like a fabulous place.

This is always a sad post to write. It means that it’s really all over for another year. It is always a privilege to be the TRENZblog writer. The two weeks that I get to be in New Zealand are always busy. And I do mean BUSY! We’re talking 18-hour days, multiple interviews, activities and then getting the blog posts up in a timely fashion for you to read. And now that Twitter has become more popular, we’re tweeting on a regular basis too. It is definitely challenging. I come home in desperate need of sleep and don’t want to talk to anyone for at least two days. But I wouldn’t change a thing about it!

Each time we produce TRENZblog, I learn a few more things about the right way to travel. First off, that old adage about “packing half of what you think you need” is right. I had a very heavy suitcase (ok, that’s plural – suitcases!) and I didn’t need to bring that much clothing. Next time, I will travel with one small bag and that’s it! (Everyone at AHA is rolling on the floor laughing hysterically at the idea that I could ever not have too much luggage.)

I also had the opportunity to do some different things on this trip – including a coach tour through APT. I have to tell you it’s a stress-free and interesting way to travel! I am a pretty independent traveller and I wondered if I would like this approach. Well, let me tell you – I am sold. The only thing you need to worry about when you take this kind of freedom of choice coach tour is what activity you want to do (there are lots of choice) and what kind of wine to have with lunch!

Another tidbit that I learned is that if you really want to learn about a country or a city, go to the local farmers’ market or take a food tour. I took the Zest Food Tour in Wellington and checked out three local markets. They gave me a real sense of the place and the people – and everyone was so friendly.

And following on the food theme – especially in NZ where excellent food is the standard – finding a place that allows you to connect with the earth and have great food can be an amazing experience. The Wild Food Cooking School at Treetop Lodge (what a place!!) was a highlight for me.

Get out of your comfort zone!! One of my more extreme experiences included going to ZORB and rolling down the hill in a giant ball. It was something I will never forget. Now I can check that off my list and find another whacky thing to do since I have already bungy jumped twice. I am thinking that next year, maybe I should try the Ziptrek in Queenstown.

Get off the ground. While I didn’t have the opportunity this year, I did spend some time with the amazing women from Volcanic Air Safaris in Rotorua. Their tours sound incredible and I am keeping my fingers crossed that next year I get to check out the White Island Active Volcano Tour. Everyone I have spoken with that takes this tour raves about it!

And last but not least, expect to have life changing experiences. I had several while in New Zealand and while most of them started with a special moment in nature, what made them extraordinary could be directly traced back to the person I was with at that time.

I mentioned Tom Bryant of Abel Tasman AquaTaxi – you might remember him, he’s the one that made me eat bug pee! He also shared an important life lesson with me about living in the moment – all while bossing me around in a kayak! I spent time on a horse on a beach with Fiona of Pakiri Beach Horse Rides and that gave me a valuable connection to the world as well. Maori Chef Eru Tutaki at Treetops also opened my mind and my heart about the importance of connecting our food to Mother Nature and being appreciative and grateful for the bounty of the earth. Our volunteer guide Allison at Zealandia was so passionate about the work being done there, you couldn’t help but feel engaged.

Everywhere I turned in New Zealand, a stranger was reaching out and sharing something with me that made me see the world differently – better. They weren’t trying to impart some big picture wisdom of the ages; they were just being who they are and shared their special part of New Zealand with me.

Even at TRENZ, where they could only show me video or images and tell me about their tourism product, the passion and pride that tour operators – like the incredibly charming Kate of Dive Tutukaka – shared with me was inspiring. The people that share their piece of New Zealand with tourists do it because they have a passion for it. They know that it can create a lasting impact, something more than just a pretty picture and a checkmark on a bucket list. They do it because they want to find that special moment with people like you and me, where we share laughter or a quiet moment in awe of the beauty of the world we live in. Or perhaps we get the chance to watch a sea creature, land animal or bird in its natural environment and we feel that connection to other living things. They do it because we carry those memories with us as we go home and we call them up again and again to remind us of how very fortunate we are to be able to visit places like New Zealand.

As I say goodbye for another year, I want to say thank you to all of the people that went out of their way to help with this blog. Thank you to the teams at TIA and Tourism New Zealand – who have never once tried to edit me and who always go out of their way to provide leadership, guidance and support. And a big thank you goes out to the Kiwis who invited me to experience their world, took the time to tell me their stories, and shared extraordinary moments with me in a very special part of the world that I have grown to love.

I hope that this blog helped bring New Zealand and the incredible people I met there to life for you.

If you get a chance, go! I promise you – it will be the trip of a lifetime.

Until next year…Kia ora!

Ruth Atherley

I met with Patrick Tamati of Te Puia and caught up on what’s happening at Te Puia, the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute.

Te Puia was set up by legislation in 1963 to foster the customary art forms of Maori. Since then, Te Puia has nurtured and trained hundreds of artists in carving, weaving and other skills, including kappa haka (Maori performing arts).

Te Puia also offers a range of guided tours throughout the day as well as Te Po, an evening cultural experience. It is a feast for the senses – full of culture, storytelling, entertainment and Maori cuisine. At the end, you are taken to view Pohutu, their famous geyser under the stars.

Click here to see additional images.

Knitting in a bar

You can join a knitting circle at AL BAR (formerly known as CENTRAL BAR before the first five letters fell off the sign!). Dunedin locals, including university students, turn up to knit their wears each Monday evening. AL BAR, like the city itself, has a very Scottish vibe serving haggis and a wide selection of whiskey. The bar also has live traditional Gaelic music.

Perfect Woman

According to Dunedin’s Speight’s beer, “It’s a hard road finding the perfect woman.” Each year Kiwi women battle it out for the Perfect Woman title through a series of competitions including sheep sheering and beer drinking.

Learn how to sheer sheep at Natures Wonders – a working farm and conservation property on the nearby Otago Peninsula.

Bring your own lunch to a coffee shop

The Fix Coffee on Frederick Street focuses on what they do best – coffee. Bring your own lunch and chill out in the courtyard with an eclectic mix of Dunedin locals. Fix was Dunedin’s first hole in the wall coffee outlet ten years ago. Since then, the owners have been roasting coffee with the aim to produce the finest and freshest available.

Even better than being in the dog house

Budget conscious travellers can get their beauty sleep inside the stables of New Zealand’s only castle, Larnach Castle. The 135-year-old stables are rated the highest in the category of historic New Zealand buildings. (And you can sleep in the stables – no kidding!) Only overnight guests can dine inside the castle, which is steeped in history, scandal, and of course there are rumours of ghosts! Larnach Castle also has a four-star lodge and runs daily tours of the castle and gardens.

There’s a beer tap in that wall!

In central Dunedin, the Speight’s brewery lies on top of a natural mineral water stream. Aside from using the water to brew this popular beer, it is made available to passers by. A street-side tap on the wall outside the brewery tours entrance gives access to the water.

Get this: Before 1950, the brewery staff had a daily allowance of 12 litres of beer!

Jaffas, Pineapple Lumps, Hokey Pokey and Chocolate Fish…sounds pretty funny to me, but these are iconic Kiwi treats.

I got to spend time with the good people at Cadbury World, based in Dunedin, New Zealand. (I have a whole other post coming on that quirky little city!) I think the only people who have a better job than me, might be these guys. They take their chocolate seriously…I mean, they have a Chocolate Carnival that lasts a week!! From July 11 to 17 – how sweet is that?

Cadbury World looks like a very fun place to visit – where the heck is my bucket list, I need to add this! And they are very involved in their community with lots of whacky events like the Cadbury Jaffa Race. On Friday July 16, two sets of 25,000 Jaffas will be released from the top of Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. The tasty little treats will come flying down the street, bouncing towards the crowds and hurtling through space as they make their way to the bottom.

I am going to have to get some Jaffas and Pineapple Lumps to take back to the office with me!

I had the opportunity to have lunch with Ziptrek’s Trent Yeo and his colleague Nicky Busst yesterday. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with the Ziptrek Queenstown team.  Trent has brought Ziptrek Ecotours, a thrilling eco-adventure, to Queenstown. It combines adventure and ecological exploration in an exciting, but not too scary, two-hour flying journey through the forest canopy. If anyone saw the very cool Ziptrek that was put in downtown Vancouver during the Olympics, think about flying through the New Zealand forest!

Over lunch, Trent was telling me about the environmental approach that is taken both here and with the parent company in Whister, British Columbia. It is an environmentally friendly, education in adventure tourism providing a “green rush” – I like that phrase! While flying through the trees, you have an interpretive guided tour.

All I can say is that this is a new tourism opportunity that I think is going to be very popular in New Zealand. It fits right in with the outdoor, respect for nature, connecting with Mother Earth approach to life here. Plus you get your heart pounding and a bird’s eye view of nature that you just won’t get anywhere else!

One of the great things about coming to TRENZ is catching up with people. I am always delighted to connect with Jo Mackie, Communications Manager for Tourism Auckland. Jo gave me some interesting info about the upcoming Rugby World Cup 2011 that I thought I would share with you.

• Auckland will host 12 matches including the opening match, both semi-finals, the bronze final and the final.
• More information about Auckland’s overall preparations is here: http://www.aucklandnz.com.
• They have just announced free public transport to games: http://www.auckland2011.com/article-n60.asp.
• An important development from a tourism point of view is that they will have cruise ships providing accommodation for visitors: http://news.aucklandnz.com/index.php/content_B/?L1=533&L2=716&id=4775.

We have a briefing about Auckland this morning and one tomorrow about the Rugby World Cup, so I am sure I will have more for you. And on Friday, I get to spend time with ex-All Black, Bryan Williams. I am hoping he will give me some tips on how to play rugby!

I was very interested when I received information about Spookers, the only haunted attraction theme park in Australasia. Check out their website, it’s intriguing. They are a new exhibitor at TRENZ, so I am sure that they will have a lot of interest.

Spookers scares the bejejus out of you through theatrical and psychological horror, for a full-on terrifying experience. The strictly 16 and up attraction includes a Haunted House, the Freaky Forest, Disturbia (a 3-D attraction with demented clowns – I love that!), and Claustrophobia (oh my!). For family friendly (which family – the Munsters?) attractions, they offer Shiver ‘n Shake Haunted House Tours, Creepers Haunted House and so much more!

I realize that Auckland isn’t necessarily something you might associate with sheer, heart pounding terror, but with Spookers you can get your scary thrills!

I have a fascination with Maori culture. In fact, I am considering learning the Maori language. I’m not quite sure how I will accomplish that, but where there is a will, there is a way.

Toru Tours is owned and operated by New Zealander Paul Fuimaono, who is committed to giving you an authentic view of Auckland’s culture and heritage. Paul told me that it is the only tour that visits a marae (a sacred place which serves both religious and social purposes) on a daily basis.

With this tour, you experience a powhiri (welcome) by Maori people at the Awataha Marae. Here you will learn about their art, the symbolism of wood carvings, how to weave, and how to sing a Maori song. There is also a guided tour of historical Maori taonga (treasures) at the Auckland Museum and an “up close” encounter with the kiwi bird at the Auckland Zoo.

A nice introduction to a fascinating culture in a fabulous city.