Experiences · Cultural
Cultural
Māori are the soul of New Zealand. This is travel into that soul.
The Experience
A pōwhiri, the traditional Māori welcome, is often ranked first by our clients when they tell us what they most enjoyed about their entire journey. These are not performances. They are genuine encounters with the guardians of this land. With Māori we have explored subjects as diverse as spiritual healing; cooking; hunting and gathering; modern investment with a 100-year timeline and so on.
The pōwhiri
welcome
A Māori Welcome
The moment clients remember above all others
A pōwhiri is often ranked first by our clients when they tell us what they most enjoyed about their journey through New Zealand. It is a formal welcome, a crossing of the threshold from stranger to guest, conducted with deep ceremony and feeling.
You are challenged, you are sung to, you are drawn into a ritual thousands of years in the making. By its end, you are no longer a tourist passing through. You have been received.
It is, for many, the single most moving moment of their time in Aotearoa — the point at which the country stops being scenery and becomes something they belong to, however briefly.
The heart
of pounamu
Bevan Climo
The West Coast, carried in a piece of jade
Bevan Climo brings the West Coast to life for us. Quite a character — as most true West Coasters are — he blends being a descendant of the land with a master's knowledge of pounamu, the sacred greenstone.
With Bevan you learn the spiritual weight of jade in Māori culture, the stories held within the stone, and the patience of working it by hand. You leave with a piece you have shaped yourself.
It is more than a craft session. It is an afternoon with a genuine character of the Coast, and a tangible piece of the country to carry home.
“Māori are the soul of New Zealand, and as such are the guardians of the country's holy places. Many people feel something they cannot name — a sense of wairua.”
Ahipara · The Soul of Aotearoa
A Guide & A Guardian
Tom Loughlin
& mātauranga Māori
Tom Loughlin, who you may already know from our wild kitchens, carries something else just as deeply: a fluency in mātauranga Māori passed down through whānau and sharpened by years working as a search-and-rescue tracker on this land.
With Tom you learn the old names for ridgelines and rivers, the stories bound into a particular bend in a particular valley, and the practical, lived knowledge that connects modern New Zealand back to its first people.
It is culture taught not in a classroom but on the ground it belongs to, by someone who reads it daily, for a living.
Your Journey Begins
Let us write the
next chapter
Everything you have read here is a beginning, not a brochure. Tell us what moved you, and we will shape a journey around it — bespoke, considered, and unmistakably yours.
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