I woke up at half 10 and went to book the boat trip to the Maori cave carvings. Breakfast consisted of nuttella on toast and an apple ... Can't wait to get to Paraparaumu (meals wise).
I then made my way down to the Taupo Marina where I took a couple of pics of the lake.
Some wisps of cloud above but later on it cleared up nicely
The sailing boat I was on "fearless,"
I then got talking to Harriet and Eve and we enjoyed the mini cruise together, taking in the surrounding scenery and getting very wet from the turbulent waves of Lake Taupo.
It was however despite being very wet and rocky, a great experience and seeing the coastline and the carvings was incredible, especially on a fine day like this.
The small bays around the lake shore are covered in dense bush but further up the hills are appropriately situated holiday homes and villas etc.
The cliff face was spotted by Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell in the 1970's and he quickly realised how ideal the cliff face was for a carved canvas. The face on the cliff is the face of
Ngatoroirangi, an ancestor who helped his family and tribe to migrate from the bay of plenty to Taupo over a thousand years ago.The lines on his face represent the generations of his family, upward facing swirls represent male family members and downward facing swirls represent female family members. The Maori had no written language before the Europeans came, so using patterns, carvings and drawings were their way of preserving information e.g. Family records etc.
It took Metahi 3 summers to complete the carvings.
The lizard is meant to be the guardian of thecarvings There were various other carvings done in a celtic style e.g. The mermaids in the bottom left corner. Metahi did this to represent the cultural diversity of New Zealand. Blame the bad picture quality on the rocky boat haha.
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