From Motorcycles to Canoes
Tamaki Tours managing director Mike Tamaki set up his company around a decade ago after convincing his brother Doug to sell his Harley Davidson motorcycle to fund a living Maori Village near Rotorua. The business, now employing around 70 people, allows tourists to see first-hand the cultural values of Maori, their arts and crafts, music and food. Visitors are taken on a journey through time, with the experience beginning in a bus imaginatively ‘turned into a canoe’ for the journey. A chief is selected, Maori songs learnt and the cultural experience begins. Visitors can also stay overnight in a marae sleeping house (wharemoe), which can sleep up to 60 people. Another part of the experience is to enjoy New Zealand's only tribal arts and crafts marketplace where people exchange their currency dollars for Tamaki currency. Bartering with the local tribal marketplace exhibitors is all part of the fun.
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