Hangi - traditional Maori cooking

I'm done with classes, yay! My next few weeks will be pretty low-key because I'll be in Christchurch for another month waiting for my finals, spending some quality time with friends, doing some small trips, and hopefully enjoying the spring/summer weather and not being too bored. A lot of the other exchange students are leaving way sooner than me so they're spending this month jam packing trips in between finals, but I'm lucky that I don't need to do that and can just enjoy my last month in Chch instead. The only downside is that most of my friends are gone - oh well, the most important one is still here and I've got some fun plans for the rest of my weekends here before I take off for travels around the country. 

So last weekend was sort of a relax and recup weekend. On Saturday I headed into the countryside outside Christchurch to go to an event put on by tramping club called a hangi. This is kind of like a Maori barbecue - it's a traditional way of cooking food that basically involves digging a pit, building a really hot fire, and cooking the food underground all day. Pictures will make more sense:

Step 1: dig pit, build hot fire with rocks in it

Step 2: dig out embers, move hot rocks to top, put food wrapped in foil in pit

Step 3: cover food with wet cloth of some kind (ie old clothes)

Step 4: cover cloth with dirt

 Step 5: try to shelter the pit from rain, leave for 6-8 hours, try to find something else to do

Our plan was to kill the time while our food cooked by hiking to a nearby "mountain", aka large hill. Unfortunately the weather was awful and none of the trails we came upon were labeled, so we spent a few hours wandering before part of the group was freezing and hungry and ready to head back. We walked back down pretty quickly and drove to a nearby cafe to warm up - clearly the best of the two options. Afterwards we built a fire and enjoyed hanging out at camp, waiting for the others to get back so we could dig our dinner out of the ground.

Commencing our wanderings on a very sketchy bridge

Beautiful view from the ridge

On our way back down out of the cloud, yay!

Things got much better as the sun emerged a bit and it became time to dig out our food! It turned out to be totally delicious, worth the effort and the wait (but I certainly wouldn't want to do it every day).

Dirt and grease and foil - yum!

Very sanitary

The pit after - doesn't look like a grave or anything

Creativity in cooking dessert

I spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the newfound sun, good company, and a solid All Blacks rugby game - they won the semifinal against Australia and now next weekend will be the World Cup final, exciting! Looking forward to my remaining time in Christchurch, I love even the low-key days.