We arrived in a little place called Maketu. We stopped the campervan by the unusual little view of the old house half sunk in the river. We thought we better ask where is the house we were looking for. The next morning we were invited to do some horse riding, a popular pastime in rural New Zealand, and we were told that the best place to spend the night will be Uncle Boy's house. But we were warned we might not have much time for sleeping if we want to listen to Uncle Boy's stories. That was true. He did like to talk. I was yawning and terribly tired and he said I could go to the sofa and have a nap while he will keep talking. As long as someone listens to him he will be all right. There was no chance I would go to sleep because it was all far too interesting to miss. Probably thinking it may put some life back to me, Uncle Boy offered us some soup, boiled chicken with lots of vegies and puha - a watercress used by Maori in cooking. When Uncle Boy opened his fridge he had young fern stored there. You get it from the bush, boil it and when it's young and soft it tastes like asparagus - he said. I thought of asking if we can have some but that would probably be greedy so we just had to believe him.

Uncle Boy mercifully decided to go to sleep first and early in the morning of the next day we found him by the river getting his dinner - whitebait. It doesn't really look like something you can eat but apparently it makes really good fritters. Again - we believe him and this time we were really quick to do so. While getting his catch and scooping it into a net he was telling us about the river and how it changes and how once some officials came here and made changes to the river's flow. "They haven't talked to anyone, didn't consult the locals" uncle Boy complained. Apparently the operation went wrong and according to Uncle if the officials would talk to the locals they could have got enough knowledge without extensive research to predict the results. The locals know the river like their own closet, they know how it changes, they know what's in it. New Zealand is very strict about conservation for example and no-one can take more seafood than the law stipulates. This upsets many Maori people who heavily depend on it. Uncle Boy is a Maori who came to terms with modern ways and lives comfortably in two worlds - the modern one and the traditional one and thinks too many Maori get too upset about it. "We call them activists" he says "often their demands are rather unrealistic".

But then again Uncle Boy says that at the moment there are riverbeds where mussels grow on top of the mussels suffocating the ones underneath and it would be good to collect them. This is where traditional knowledge is sometimes not used to the full and since we started travelling around New Zealand we found more and more how connected the indigenous people are with their land, how aware of the nature and how shrewd in many ways. I remember as a small girl being told things by my Nana that I believed in and when I was growing up I started questioning them. Some, without logical explanations, seemed made up, superstitious. But then, later on, when I found in books strong scientific supports for my grandma's theories and I came around to believing in it again. Now I look at all the things she told me with far more respect. Even if some seem strange I know there may be a grain of truth in it that once I may discover by myself or maybe in years to come some scientist will come up with a theory that old people knew for ages and were passing from generation to generation. They knew it not from doing research and scientific experiments but simply from living, observing, experiencing and learning from theirs or theirs ancestors' mistakes

When we walked back Uncle Boy was telling us about the Marae he was building. It will be, what he calls, a commercial Marae where he can host backpackers and tourists who want to come to this picturesque little place for encounters with indigenous culture and to experience Maori lifestyle. But he builds it in the memory of his parents. The meeting house will be called after his father, the Whare Kai, the house where food will be prepared and eaten - after his mother. It's not built completely in a traditional way it's more simplified and modern but when Uncle Boy invited us to see the inside he made a point to let me know that I can only stand by the entrance and make no step inside, while Richard was allowed to wander around the unfinished building. Women, considered sacred, tapu as temples who carry new life, are not allowed to the construction sites. Behind many of these traditions there is a lot of common sense, customs often protect people or resources or act as laws and hold the society together. Here I was sure the ancient custom was protecting my head from the beams, which still looked a bit unsure.

Our next stop was Rotorua, a place of volcanoes, geysers, colourful hot mineral pools and mud baths. We obviously took advantage of this and between our activities soaked in our hotel's pool, and one day made a visit to the Polynesian Spa, where we sat in the private pools overlooking the lake framed by blossoming trees. Hey, that's life isn't it. Just to add some spice to it we also went to Hell's Gate and had a mud bath. Come on can you imagine having more fun than splashing in the mud and smothering it all over yourself and your friend and additionally it's supposed to be really good for you. Well it's not that being dirty is good for you and it's not all mud that is good but this particular mud is. The baths are healthy the mud is too I am only not sure how healthy the breathing is and certainly the smell is not very encouraging but there - we live only once. All these healthy baths are a big part of the tourism industry and a certain attraction for visitors but before the Polynesian Spa or Hell's Gate were built, the locals used the water and mud for cooking, heating, bathing and therapies.

When we visited Whakarewarewa village we found out that, in fact, the locals still use the hot water pool for cooking their corn and eggs, they channel water for their baths and they use the steaming ground holes for cooking their meet and other veggies. Nature fully utilised. Not just utilised though, also cared for. As we walked through the village with Auntie Chris, an elder Maori Lady. She took us to one of the pools and when she introduced us to the turquoise pool hiding under the thick layer of steam she spoke gently to it asking it to show us it's whole beauty. When she took us to the geyser and it welcomed us with a spray of water she laughed and said "and hello to you too, now stop it please". Then she told us a story. Apparently the hot pool rises on a fairly regular basis. Some time before December 2004 it was rising 3-4 times more often.

Auntie, when she noticed this strange activity, interpreted it by using the indigenous knowledge she gained by sitting around the elders as a small girl and patiently listening to their conversations. "In a Maori world, she said the earth is our mother. The Ring of Fire is her heart; the Asia Pacific fault is her right arm with their arteries. Places on earth are connected like parts of a human body. When I saw these activities here I knew there would be reaction elsewhere". "I said to my visitors don't go to Asia around December, January time. I told my son, it's gonna happen on Christmas day. I knew there would be a tsunami but knew only that it will be somewhere in South Asia". "How could you say the time," I asked? "I can't explain this." "This was just a guess. But then my Grand grandmother was the highest priestess and sometimes I think I have something running through my blood, an ability to see things, to feel the unseen. I don't know." We stopped for a while and I pondered about what I just heard. "Have you told anyone, any scientists," I asked? "Ah, no, would they listen to an old simple women like me" she said. Would they? In old times old people were the only source of knowledge. They knew and understood things and they knew the rituals important to placate the gods. Now not many believe in ancient gods. Now not many need the rituals, Now not many believe in old people. Thanks Auntie for showing us a bit of your intriguing, fascinating world and we would love to come back and meet you again and visit your relatives from the forest. And please keep an eye on us when we travel, will you.

Because we have spent so much time over the last year and a half in Auckland and Northland, this week, in Tauranga and Rotorua is the last new area in New Zealand that we will visit and what a way to finish. This whole area is on a geological fault and the result is that you have hot springs, volcanoes, mud pools and an almost moon like landscape of craters, only here they are multi coloured and ever changing. Living, as I have always done, in a country whose natural world is really quite static unless man comes along and kills it off this is a revelation. But here it is so very different. Nature is changing all time and there are bits of nature that you are far closer to than you may really want to be. For example, as the crust of the earth is really thin here, you are sometimes walking a few metres above the mantle of the earth. And it is this thin crust that causes so many of the natural phenomena around here.

It is quite difficult to come to terms with the fact that every day when you wake up steam is rising from the ground, the rivers and it goes on all day. We get very blinkered in our own lives and never really think about the different conditions that other people live in and when we actually see them we think how strange. But to these other people this is normal and my life is strange. I suppose, well actually I know, that this is why I wanted to put this project together. To create a greater awareness of different lifestyles across our world and, not only the lifestyles but also the environment that helps to create that way of life. In this way we can all understand and appreciate normality in any given locality. As proof of this, even the smell of sulphur that you notice as soon as you drive into Rotorua becomes everyday after a while.

But you can not be so complacent about other things. The land around here is dangerous and highly volatile. Despite the best efforts of scientists and experts, nature is not predictable. This is the opposite, in temperature terms, of the Franz Josef glacier. There the ice was moving and each day the walk on the glacier was different. Here the gases and water under the earth's crust are looking for ways to escape and new geyser may erupt at any time or an old one which has been dormant may suddenly burst into life. Craters may appear as the pressure proves too much for the thin crust and it collapses. Depending on the minerals being deposited and their reaction to the other natural gases in our atmosphere the pools formed will have different colours.

It is a most amazing feeling to be among this type of activity. You may know that Ev is always interested in people, what they think, how they feel, why they do things. One of the reasons I believe we are so suited to doing this project together is that I have a different view from her. Yes I like people, I am one, but I just love nature, the big wide world we live in and I just look around in complete wonder of all that goes on. Of course people have to react with nature and this interests me too and here, in Rotorua, I found quite a few of these things interesting. The very first settlers here, the Maori, worshipped and respected nature. They had gods who they believed created all the nature. What did they think their god was doing when water shot into the air? How did it feel to walk on very hot ground? Why did water in pools rise and fall

Over time they came to understand the phenomena and to be to explain it. They didn't as far as I know try to predict it but they knew certain events meant certain things. Ev has written about our little friend we met in Whakarewarewa who knew that the Tsunami was coming in late 2004. She knew it because things were changing in her world and that meant things must change elsewhere. If we combine traditional knowledge with our own ability to monitor things then maybe, just maybe, we can understand nature better and, with care, actually save our planet. In some cases man is destroying nature and suffering the consequences; here in Rotorua nature is in control in its own way. We need to respect that. The older generation does and young people must be made to understand it too. With the crust of the earth so thin, even the roots of a flower can shatter the stone.

Let me leave you with a little quote:

The earth is our mother just turning around
With her trees in the forest, roots underground
Our father above us whose sigh is the wind
Paint us a rainbow without any end
As the river runs freely, the mountains does rise
Let me touch with my fingers see with my eyes
In the hearts of the children a pure love still grows
Like the bright star in heaven that lights our way home
Like the flower that shattered the stone.