Farming demonstrations at the Agrodome
Our first visit today was to the Agrodome, a venue outside Rotorua devoted to education about the sheep industry in New Zealand. When it was built, sheep farming was New Zealand's number one industry, but it has since been overtaken by dairy farming. We still see sheep everywhere as we drive through the countryside, though.We went in past a bronze statue of a sheep shearer at work.
Inside were, well, sheep.
Some of us got closer to the sheep than others.
Posing for portraits.
The master of ceremonies told us a bit about all the different breeds of sheep in New Zealand, and how the wool from each is used for different purposes.
I doubt that this is intended as a comment on the US Presidential election, which happened one day ago New Zealand time. There's also a breed called Black Romney with (what else?) black wool.
The MC then gave us a sheep-shearing demonstration. It was amazingly quick.
All the wool came away in one piece, as if the sheep had just stepped out of its winter coat.
The sheep's now ready for summer.
He demonstrated how the shearers use pressure points on the sheep to make them extend their limbs so that the wool can be sheared without cutting the sheep.
Next was cow milking, with audience participation. One of our own travelers tried her hand.
For her successful efforts she was awarded a certificate.
Volunteers (including one of us again) were called up and given bottles containing milk. They were told they were to drink the milk on the count of "1, 2, ..."
But on "3" several lambs zoomed onstage looking for milk. It turned into a contest to see who could feed their lamb the fastest.
Finally, there was a sheep-herding, or rather, duck-herding demonstration. Apparently the dogs are first trained on ducks, then move on to sheep as they gain experience. The sheep on stage were docile enough to allow the dogs to climb over their backs.
This group of people had apparently won a trip to New Zealand, and they posed on the stage for a group picture.
A vintage advertising poster for shearing equipment. Note the quotation that says that one shearer "accounted for 422 Romney lambs, working a 9 hour day." That's one lamb every 1 minute and 17 seconds, not allowing for breaks, and was a world record.
Whakerewarewa
Our last stop was the Māori "thermal village" of Whakarewarewa. It houses about a dozen Māori families and is built atop a geothermal field with several natural hot springs. It offers views of the natural phenomenon of the springs and information about the history and culture of the Māori people.
The entrance arch features figures representing Māori soldiers of World Wars I and II. The memorial list of names for World War I is shown here.
We arrived as a show featuring costumed Māori was in progress. Here, they have the audience involved in the song they are performing.
The performing group demonstrated a bit of the haka, often referred to as the Māori "war dance". In fact (according to Wikipedia), the haka is not limited to the ritual demonstration of aggression before a battle, and is not performed only by men.
The performance also traditional Māori dances and love songs.
There were several groups of school children in the audience, and they came onstage to sing a Māori song. The student at the front gave a long introduction entirely in the Māori language.
Afterward, audience members posed for pictures with fierce Māori.
After the performance, we were taken through the village by a very knowledgeable Māori guide.
The decoration at the roof peak of the village's wharenui, or meeting house.
The village has both an Anglican (in US terminology, Episcopal) church and a Catholic church. This structure houses a church bell from an earlier village.
Details of some of the carvings,
The villagers have taken advantage of their free steam source to create these food cookers. Just wrap the food in something like cheese cloth and leave it in the steam for the right length of time.
Here they've used the steam to heat this planting bed, resulting in a larger crop in a shorter time. The steam is so hot that they've had to add ventilation to the area under the bed to avoid cooking the plants' roots.
Drifting steam is everywhere in the village.
Steam bubbling up from the bottom of one of the pools.
One of the steam vents becomes a geyser at regular intervals.
The village's Catholic church, built by Fr. Charles Kreijmborg in 1904, according to the sign. The village cemetery can be seen to the left and right of the church. The graves are above-ground tombs, because the water table is so high (and it's boiling water).
It was a very interesting place to visit.
That evening, there was a Māori performance of songs and dances at our hotel.
One of our travelers sang on stage in the audience participation part of the show.
A long day. Tomorrow we're off by air to the South Island and lots of mountainous scenery.
Well hello there! In this post did you base on any researches or here are totally your private reflections? Thank you very much in advance for your answer.
ReplyDelete