TALES FROM THE TOP

The final stop on this whirlwind tour of small town New Zealand was the Maori enclave of Rotorua.

Here you get totally immersed in Maori culture, from sacred wood carving, weaving, extracting fiber from plants to learning about the edible plants and herbs in the town’s lush bush.

And this must also be the only town where locals perform the hongi to people they meet.

I dropped by a Maori village in the evening to partake in the Te Puai night cultural extravaganza and traditional hangi dinner.

And guess who was chosen tribal chief?

That’s also where I learn the traditional Maori Haka but I think I failed to intimidate anyone

We retreated to a very remote hunting lodge in the evening.

Treetops is inconveniently nestled among the Rotorua bush, but the drive up was well worth it.

The lodge was as luxurious as any 5 star accommodation in any city. Except this one is self sustaining, everything consumed here is grown in the farm or picked from the bush.

The lodge’s chef took me for a bush walk to pick herbs for dinner, and again I joined him in the kitchen to prepare our dinner.

But I couldn’t wait to retreat to our lodge at the end of the night, just because the rainy weather was perfect to light a fire and keep warm indoors.

Of course I had to take pictures of the stylish and thoughtful rooms too, apart from the usual toiletries found in many hotels, Treetops stocks its guestrooms with sunscreen, lip balm, eye cream and a bedside “sleep sniff” to help put guests to sleep.

It was truly very difficult to wake up the next morning for an early flight out of Rotorua to catch our Singapore flight from Auckland.

Who would have thought traveling through small towns in New Zealand would bring me face to face with a woman I grew up seeing on Philippine TV.

She calls herself the “Crazy American” and she operates a vacation house so ostentatious you might think you just walked into a Hollywood movie set circa 1940’s.

Karen used to live in Manila when her then husband was a diplomat. She did a tv ad for a popular milk brand back in the early 80’s and I can still recall it all. What a small world indeed.

She hosted an evening soiree at her home where me and my entourage stayed for the night, in glamorously extravagant bedrooms with names like Zsa Zsa, Marilyn, Isabelle and Esmeralda.

The highlight of the night was learning how to cook, with New Zealand’s Chef of the Year 2007.

The stay at Park Hill Estates showed me how it would be to live the glamorous Hollywood life of yesteryears.

The town of Napier is also well known for it’s Art Deco architecture. So the next day we hopped into a vintage 1930’s car for a drive by through the town’s busy streets and boulevards to have a glimpse of its well preserved art deco buildings.

It is probably the only town on earth where people not just drive their vintage cars but also dress-up in costumes of the era.