2025 New Zealand - September - Day 04 - Church, Lake, Treewalk and Māori Experience

 September 14, 2025 

Nice evening last night relaxing.  We just chilled watching some shows on the iPad and then forced ourselves to go to bed a bit later in hopes that we would wake up a bit later.  It kinda worked.  But we were still up pretty early.

Today is Sunday.  So we got up and got ready to attend the 9 AM Sacrament meeting services.  Apparently Rotorua is a Stake and I think the building we met in was the Stake Center.  Two wards (congregations) meet in the building that we attended.  It was an interestingly designed building.  The services were nice.  A new couple who just joined the church were welcomed and the wife gave a sweet testimony of her conversion and love of now attending church.  Apparently, to get baptized, they had to get married.  So they were married on Friday, baptized on Saturday and welcomed as new members on Sunday.  Big changes in their lives and they are thrilled about it.  We met all the missionaries that are serving here from a number of areas in the world.  A few from Utah, one from Australia, another from Florida.  A senior missionary couple spoke and gave nice talks.  She mentioned the shooting of Charlie Kirk in Utah saying it was in her backyard.  She must live in the Orem area.  It hurts to think this horrible thing was done there by a Utahn.  So sad.  A young family left without a father.  No sense to it.

After church, we headed to a cafe to get some breakfast.  We had nothing in our room and needed some food.  We went to the Third Place Cafe.  Denise kept saying…why would they call it third place?  Why not first, or even second place.  But third?   Kinda funny.  The food was good.  Denise tried some dish that had their sweet potatoes in it.  But, they are nothing like the sweet potatoes that we have back home.  They were still very good.  I just had some toast and eggs, with hash browns.  The hash browns were straight from McDonald’s…the triangular shaped things.  Made me smile.

We then had to go to a store looking for some distilled water.  In Whitianga, I found some only it was in a massive jug…I think at least two or more gallons.  I did not want to lug that around.  So I did not buy it there.  But here, in one of their markets, they had it in 1 liter bottles.  That was perfect.   I bought a couple.  So I should be fine for the rest of the trip with this CPAP machine I now carry.  We also purchased some breakfast and travel snack supplies for our next journey tomorrow morning to Taupō.  

We returned to our hotel room, which I have to say is the biggest in the whole hotel, to change our clothes and figure out something to do.  Denise had her I on a Redwood Forrest Treewalk thing.  So we decided to go explore that.  It turned out to be quite amazing.  We took a stroll on the ground along a path through a beautiful redwood forest with tons of ferns and other plants growing.  The large trees knocked the wind down to the point you didn’t feel it at all when walking way back inside.  We took one of the shorter paths so that we could get back and walk the Treewalk paths that are way up in the trees….much to my dismay.  But, I was a trouper, a true Boy Scout and did the walk with my wife with my life in peril all along the way.  Who does this stuff?  They must have a death wish in the end.  Nonetheless, I made it safely back to ground after about 40 minutes of a harrowing walk.  Denise just smiled brightly all along the way.   What is wrong with her?!?!

After our tree adventure, we returned to the room to rest and get ready for our Māori Dinner and experience that we had booked a while back.  And what an experience the Mãori Show and Dinner was.  It was interesting to hear about their culture and way of living back in the day.  They provided a Hangi meal, where most everything was cooked in a pit.  But they added so much more to the meal.  It was an all you can eat buffet like no other.  I ate way too much.  But it was all so very good.  We also had the chance to take a night walk and see glow worms.  That was pretty cool.  If you clapped your hands, they would glow.  The show was 3 hours long including dinner.  But as a treat, there was a group of teenagers (or a bit older) from south Auckland there who were Māori.  They were there as a result of some competition that they had been in the area for.  They asked if they could sing a few songs.  Oh my…they sang like angels their cultural songs.  That was an amazing treat.  Youth all over the world are silly and act the same.  So did these kids…they were silly out on the trails that we walked.  But boy, when it came time to perform, they were all business and sang so well.  We were thrilled to have had that added bonus to our night.

Well, that’s pretty much it for Rotorua.  It’s been fun.  We are off tomorrow to Taupõ.  We shall see what that area holds for a day.  New Zealand has treated us well.  You can tell that it is a special place.

Pictures:

This is the front to our ‘boutique’ hotel.  It’s interesting as it has a beautiful old lobby area that I showed on yesterday’s blog.  But you go outside to get into your rooms.  The whole thing creaks!

One of the larger redwood trees that we saw….

On the lake here, it is full of black swans.  You do see a few white ones.  But they are definitely in the minority here.

A happy hiker looking forward to elevating herself into a walk ‘in the trees’ high above the ground.

At night, at the Redwood Treewalk, they light up the Forrest.  And this is one of the big lanterns that you can walk into if you did this at night.  But who would walk such a thing in the pitch black of night.  Just crazy.

The pretty fern Forrest….

The entrance sign….

Yes, we are still together after doing such madness…I love her mucho!

Who’s in pain and who is happy to be so high in the trees?  I think it is obvious.

Us after church.  This is the backside of the building.  

This is the front of the church looking up at it from the street below.  It’s a lovely building.  I think it is the Stake Center.  But I’m not 100% sure.

This is how we dry our swim wear in our room.  You can see the heater above Denise’s suit to the far left.  We cranked the heat up and then hung our suits off the pictures and the mirror.  You gotta do what you gotta do.

I’ve never seen this before when entering a store.  It’s a one way street.  You can go in.  But you are not coming out the same way.  Once in, you buy or die!  🤓

This was Denise’s dish that had their version of a sweet potato in it (Kumara it is called).  It was ok.  The dish also had a poached egg on it with hollandaise sauce.  She really liked it.

Denise in all her glory standing on the edge of death.  I’m not sure how high we were.  But to me, it was too high!

This is Denise walking across one of the bridges….

I love this tall fern.  It is a tree, or so it appeared.  I think they would be cool around a pool in someone’s tropical backyard!

Waiting for breakfast, probably in third place, at Third Place Cafe….

I’m waiting also…hoping to be in at least 2nd or even 1st place!

An entrance into the area where they had example huts and things as they had lived long ago.

Glow worms….

Some of the kids that sang to us.  I think there were 20 or more that performed.

Some of the yummy deserts.  The white stuff on the end was ‘Hoke Poke’ Ice Cream.  It was amazing!  The stuff on the bottom was a cake like stuff…almost like merengue.  It was my favorite desert.  And you’re only seeing a small number of them.

One of our plates of food.  It was a mix of authentic Maōri foods and other stuff.

This is a picture from their show where they sang and performed chants showing off the weapons of war and instruments used back in the day.

The man standing here was the shows host.  Here he was telling about the significance of their face tattoos.

Maőri warriors coming up the river in one of their fire boats ready for war!

The night’s host is showing us the Hangi pit where a lot of the main course was being cooked.

More pictures of the show….

The Maōri’s liked to make large carvings.  This was a cool one that was on a stage in the dining hall where we ate.

This guy was our night’s host.  He was amazingly intelligent about the history of his people and their culture.

Last picture of the show….it was a fun night for sure.