June 2012

This week two US students trapped in New Zealand's South Island wilderness by a snowstorm, trekked back out to safety after surviving their nine-day ordeal by rationing their meager supplies to a biscuit and jelly per day. "I believe when you go into the bush you take your life into your own hands and need to be prepared to handle whatever conditions occur,"  said 21 year old  Alec Brown . "We could have been more prepared, but in the end we were prepared enough to walk ourselves out." We disagree.

Last week we took our 2 and 4-year-old girls to see the Tamaki Māori Village Experience in Rotorua.

The experience from our perspective was a good one. Once home, like a good little tourist, I logged onto Trip Advisor to air my thoughts and contribute to the so called "reviews you can trust" I came across a review that at first glance looked deliberately malicious (a false review) but on further inspection it became apparent that the reviewer had little or no understanding of contemporary Maori or held a totally unrealistic expectation to what he was letting himself in for.