Obviously our next stop was the buried village, after having cruised the lake and walked the valley where else would we go. About 15 minutes the other side of Rotorua, past the Blue and Green Lakes, are the remains of the village of Te Wairoa, owned and operated by the Smith family since 1931 when they first reopened the tea rooms to tourists. The museum is very well laid out and informative, my favourite exhibit was a petrified bowler hat. From the museum you get to walk round the remains of the village, to be honest there isn’t much left. What they do have is well labelled and the audio tour was excellent. Some of the most interesting parts were the mud that covered the village, currently about 1m is uncovered at the blacksmiths house to see, the petrified flour and the fence posts. Originally these marked the edges of the properties in the village but the nutrients in the mud caused them to grow into an avenue of poplar trees that have only recently been cut down. Once through the village you can visit Wairere falls and then onto the tea rooms, the web site had tokens for a free hot drink so we sat and did our duty while the sparrows scavenged the cake others had left behind. One enterprising bird dipped the cake in the jam!
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