New years festival and volcanic experiences
NEW ZEALAND | Monday, 18 January 2010 | Views [699] | Comments [1]
The mist from the pools where warm and wet
We spend new year at a 5
day hippie festival at a retreat centre called Prana, in Coromandel,
North Island. It was small, just 500 people, but really nice and
lovely. The whole event was (nearly) drug free and family-friendly
with a open and friendly atmosphere. In the day time there where
20-30 different workshops to choose form, everything form afro gospel
singing, chanting, African dance, samba dance, capoeira, contact
improvisation and yoga, to workshops on relationships, different
aspects on spirituality, meditation, film showings etc. In the
evenings there where concerts and shows of different kinds.
The weather was fantastic
and it actually even got too hot most of the days, but despite of
that there was a lot of dancing, drumming and singing. Since the
festival was located by the beach, we got to swim everyday,
wonderful!
Although the festival was
maybe more my type of event, I believe Roy enjoyed it (certainly the
swimming part) and he got to do a capoeira workshop amongst other
things, and when he was drinking the beer that he smuggled in I can
say for sure that he even enjoyed it a lot.
One of my favourite
moments form the festival was when Roy and I danced tango to trance
disco music, that was great. It was actually the first tango we have
done since Buenos Aires...it has been too long without dancing
really.
After the five days of
glorious sunshine at the festival, it started to rain and fortunately
that was the day of departure. We drove the Underbite (our van) down
to the Bay of Plenty and the Rotorua area where we chilled for a day
while we did some admin work and washed all our clothes after all the
dust and sand from the festival. We bought some exotic local fruit
that I have never try before, some orange type fruit, yellow kiwi
fruit, and a two-in one fruit : apple and pear ( I know they exist in
Europe as well, but this tasted different an was extremely juicy).
The flowing day we had the
whole volcanic experience. We camped at a spa with natural hot pools
that where up to 40°C. Campers
who stayed at the site got to use the pools for free. It was an
amazing experience sitting in one of the hot pools looking out over
the valley with the cow greasing and seeing puffs of steam coming
from the hot water springs amongst the bushes. It was a like a sauna
experience and we got all relaxed afterwards.
Next
morning we went to the Geothermal Wonderland Park (see photos) and
although the photos we took capture the extraordinary of the
features, they do not capture the “rotten egg” smell. You are
lucky, because it was quite strong and disturbing.
So
far, during our 4 weeks or so of travelling in NZ we have been
stopped by the police twice an Roy, who has been driving, have had to
do a alcohol breathing test. They are quite serious here, Roy says it
has never happened to him in the UK, and he has had his licence for
over 20 years...
Now
we are off to a meditation retreat.
Love
ania
