Volcano

New Zealand is built atop volcanoes. Many of them. Many still active. You probably heard about the one that killed a bunch of people last week. You probably wonder why people were there in the first place. It's called living. It's not without risk. What is the point of breathing if all you do is sit on your couch and watch television or sports all your life?

I didn't go to the crater of a volcano, although I had planned to. I was going to hike at Tongariro National Park, one of the first national parks on the planet. I did hike at Tongariro National Park, but I didn't make it to the crater of a volcano because I hadn't realized the time involved. It was four hours to the peak, and that would have required a four hour return or a four hour trek to the other side of the park and a shuttle back. If I were going on an eight hour hike, I'd have to prepare for it, and I hadn't. So I settled for a few hours under the shadow of the volcanoes.

this is what you are missing out on

The drive from Rotorua to Tongariro was about two hours. I stopped in Matamata for lunch, not knowing that it was a tourist trap for the Lord of the Rings crowd, as it was the location for Hobbiton. While I found it somewhat amusing, for the life of me I couldn't understand why, amidst all the natural beauty and adventure, one would come halfway across the world just to visit TV land.

I stayed in a ski lodge called Pipers Lodge in National Park Village, but since it was spring, it was the off season, and there weren't many people. This was the view from National Park Village:

The only volcano I had ever seen in my life was Mount Vesuvius, at least that I am aware of, and here were several snowcapped volcanoes right in front of me.

I drove to one of only two carparks at the park. This side of the park was desert, and it was beautiful.

The weather was, well, spring. It was partly cloudy, or partly sunny, or hailing at one point. The sky and the light were such that it made it tough to take photos without constantly adjusting the settings. (Rather frustrating, and slowed me down considerably.) The hail lasted only a couple minutes, and I was well prepared for weather, so it was all rather beautiful, even if I felt a sense of trepidation as the blackness suddenly appeared from behind the mountains.

how it looked when I set out

suddenly...

the moment before it began to hail

yikes

the white balls are the hail

Tuwharetoa was moody

you have to pay attention

and then it cleared

dream beneath the desert sky

lots of iron in the rocks

I didn't get very far, as I was enamored with the place and kept stopping to take photos and just marvel at how I was there, beneath the shadow of volcanoes, halfway across the world, feeling very fortunate that I am able to do such things and wondering why so many who could also do so choose to spend their lives imprisoned in their living rooms. Again I thought about how our mentally manufactured problems - the ones spread by political propaganda like immigration, terrorism, and inequality - could be drastically reduced if only more people would get out and see the world. Life is so simple. Why do people make it complicated?

There wasn't much else to do in Tongariro, and given that most people who go there during the ski off season do an eight hour hike, why should there be? There is a sports bar, but I was tired and not much in the mood for that. I had a lamb shank dinner and a couple of beers in the lodge and waited for the stars. My star tracker app was open on my phone, but it was pretty cloudy and I couldn't make out many of the constellations. I ventured out for a moment and heard a kiwi somewhere close. I looked for the Southern Cross, the constellation on the flags of both New Zealand and Australia that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. I wandered to the edge of the driveway. It was quite dark, and the stars, while more numerous than beneath the light pollution of home, were covered by a layer of clouds. I went back to the room. I waited. I waited some more. I turned the lights out and waited and waited and waited until my eyes drooped. I opened the star tracker app and located the direction of the Southern Cross. I leaned out the window and found it.

I went to sleep.

Native Son (s and Daughters)

I called the Avis office in Auckland. No answer. So I called the one in Rotorua and they told me to bring the car with the cracked windshield in and they'd give me another one. I drove to a tiny airport and picked up a new car and headed out to Te Puia, a geothermal/Maori cultural site with a famous geyser.

"More steaming ground?" you are probably thinking. Well, yes. It is fascinating, this place we inhabit, the one we are destroying at a demonic rate. People claim that George Bernard Shaw renounced atheism when he visited the Hell's Gate site. Well, I am not going to start worshiping an invisible sky genie after seeing these sites, but I was damn well reminded that the Earth, not human beings, is the one running things.

I entered the site thinking it was a mistake, that this was a tourist trap, a kind of Maori Disneyland. You could excuse me for thinking that as I made my way through giant tour buses, exorbitant entrance fees, the massive gift shop, and the entrance building itself. Even inside, the replicas of traditional Maori buildings seemed pretty cheesy, and the busloads of selfie-obsessed Chinese tour groups made me think I had should have gone elsewhere.

Te Puia's entrance area

Honestly reminded me of a Girl Scout camp I once attended

There was no sign explaining what this was for, but it reminds me of the Native American museum displays we grew up with in Ohio

I was wrong, fortunately.

I wanted to see the Maori cultural show so forked over the excessive amount of money to add the show to my entrance fee. I was quite interested in Maori culture, as I knew absolutely nothing about it beyond the fact that they came to New Zealand from Polynesia. What I learned from the Te Puia site is that the Maori arrived to New Zealand a mere 200 years before Europeans, they grew a lot of sweet potatoes (kamara), and their creation mythology is basically the same as every other ancient religion - a sea being and an earth being mated to start the world. From these religions come the religions people currently fight wars over, including the US and its evangelical crack force that sets our foreign policy and thinks liberals are "baby killers." ROLLS EYE EMOJI

The Maori left Polynesia because they were fighting wars with other Polynesian tribes over land and resources. Mai Mekatu to Tongariro is a proverb about how the tribe, the Arawa, colonized the North Island from the Mekatu to the Tongariro areas. Then Europeans - especially the British (oh, big surprise) came and it all culminated in a civil war from 1845 to 1872. Nobody was innocent. It was all about land "ownership," as if that fiery Earth weren't the true Queen of us all.

The cultural show was based on a ceremony for greeting strangers. It started outside before we all moved indoors.

Then I set off to explore the steaming grounds, including the Te Puia geyser.

Te Puia geyser

Let me tell you something...you cannot accurately communicate what the site was like with photos. You had to be there to feel the heat of the place. The ground was hot. The air was hot. You could feel the heat beneath your feet and on your skin. It reminded you that Earth, not human beings, not sky genies, is in control. That a New Zealand volcano took lives this week is testament to that. We are standing on a rock whose core is molten, certain death, and we keep asking for it.

This is why human beings created the Hell myth. Ancient people knew the inside of the Earth was hot from sites like this. Christianity took it and ran with it, with the Church using the concept as a way to control the people. Hell became political propaganda. And it still is.

Ruaumoko, God of Volcanoes and Earthquakes