Dental Health Magazine Dental Health Magazine Issue 8 | Page 57

Issue #8, December 2017
I had been to
New Zealand twice,
once on a holiday in
1993 and another for
a meeting in 1998. It
is a beautiful country
to visit, but to live there is something
else I feel. During my holiday there, I
had a strange experience.
I arrived Auckland from Sydney
and was hosted by a dear friend who
showed me around and made me feel
really at home. The Maori backdrop of
Auckland fascinated me. Two years
later when I saw the powerful film
“Once Were Warriors”, I began to better
understand an aspect of the Maori life
widely talked about then.
From Auckland we drove to ( the smelliest place on earth I have
Rotaroa and stayed with another ever been to was a city in Peru called
friend, who had the most beautiful CIMBOTE. It was a fish processing and
rose garden I ever saw, right by a distribution centre and for the life of me,
picturesque river lined with weeping I wondered how people could live there
willows that you could row a beat on. with the perpetual stench. It should
It was lovingly tended to by a friendly enter the Guinness Book of Record as
Tongan (who was pleased to know of the smelliest place on earth!) It was
my association with my former Oxford actually the smell of sulphur from the
classmate
Tofa
(Maaulupekatofa
Tuita - now the Honourable Lord Tuita,
many hot springs and geysers which
was a great attraction in that region.
Minister of Minister of Lands, Survey,
Natural Resources and Environment,
I really had a wonderful time in
brother-in-law to the present King of Rotaroa, but I was feeling something
Tonga). strange – I had difficulty sleeping.
The first thing I noticed on arrival Leaving my friends there, I flew
in Rotaroa was a nasty smell that on to Wellington. It was the most
permeated the air. I always joked frightening
about it that it was as if a giant had let
out a huge, endless fart – excuse me!…
plane
landing
I
ever
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