The beauty of Kawakawa Balm

I have always loved this spot. At one part of our estuary there are various houses and holiday homes sited on top of the hills and cliff tops but this one particular one is right on the sand overlooking the water. Imagine waking up to the view of skies, clouds and waves? Bliss!

Anyway I've had a rather interesting experience this week. A few months ago the other half when we lived in Kerikeri fixed an internet problem on a property belonging to a lady named Rawi and her husband. Now this lady runs a business making natural products such as soap and skin creams etc.

(image from soapshack.org)

She gave him a small bag for me containing a bar of coloured soap and a small tub of Kawakawa balm. At the time I was really touched so I emailed her to say thank you. Anyway, after we moved back here to Mangawhai I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Last week I had a graze and put some of the balm on, by the end of the day it was healed up.

FYI the Kawakawa tree is one of the native plants used in Maori traditional healing. Rongoa means "medicine" so the use of herbs and plants is well known. It also involves spiritual healing, massage and natural health. After the positive experience I had with this product I think I'll order some more once I run out.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday and My Corner of the World.

Learning at Rewa's Village

One of our adventures recently have included visiting an attraction that is local to us called Rewa's Village. Now this place overlooks the Kerikeri Stone Store and Mission House and was designed to teach people about the Maori fishing village that used to be there before and when the first settlers arrived in NZ. Well known chiefs like Tareha of Ngati Rehia, Rewa of Ngai Tawake and Hongi Hika of Ngati Tautahi stayed here in the 1820s.

This is a storage area that the Maori use to store their food in such as vegetables, ferns, roots etc.

A Maori whare is what we call a house or sleeping area or a meeting house. You can see the small door and window at the front. There is a floor area inside that is basically the earth and they would've laid grass or mats down to sit and sleep on.

At the bottom of the hill is this wetland area. The tide was out so we were able to see the various plants that grew there such as Mangroves which are an important ecological food source for many fish and crustaceans such as Snapper, Crabs and Shrimps etc.

Along the many pathways were many medicinal plants that the Maori would've used to treat illnesses and eat for food such as Flax (Harakeke) was prepared and used as clothing or baskets, Kawakawa was used to treat cuts, wounds, bruises or for toothache, the bark of the Rata tree was soaked in water and then applied as a lotion. More information on the uses of these plants here.

This hut under the earth was another storage area - this one particular for Kumara or what you might call Sweet Potato which was a very important food staple. In fact it's still popular today, we like the orange variety as it is sweeter than the gold or purple.

Near the edge of the water was this fishing waka or canoe that would've fitted at least 2-3 people in. It's alot smaller than a traditional war canoe. To the Maori, Tangaroa is the God of the sea and of fish. It was important for them to be favoured by this God and because fishing was regarded as being Tapu (a sacred activity) they had rules about when to fish and how to make nets out of Flax.

This hut was for a Tohunga's enclosure. A Tohunga was sort of like a doctor who practiced alternative natural medicine and they were greatly respected.

More medicinal plants around this path including plaques explaining who the first botanists to our country were such as Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander who came off Captain Cook's boat.

I'm particularly interested in natural medicine and I have grown various herbs for use in cooking and drinking so this appealed to me.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday and My Corner of the World.