Ngaruawahia High School Yearbooks 2010-2012 Kapa Haka Tour of Western USA 1998 | Page 119

Ngaruawahia High School Kapa Haka USA Tour 1998 - Page 117

Giving an impromptu performance at Hoover Dam.

The boys’ turn to present the haka in the Hoover Dam
entrance hall.

Upon the invitation of the Ministry of the
Interior (who administer the Hoover Dam) the
group performed two items to nearly 200 others
present and were rewarded by the administration
telling the group that they had earned the $25
‘hard hat’ tour. With 37 in the group it made a
saving of $925 that was gratefully received!
The performance was dynamic and all the
more impressive due to the outstanding acoustics
in the assembly area. The applause by the
spectators was enthusiastic and prolonged.
Blue hard hats were issued to each member
of the group (that they were allowed to keep) and
they were instructed that these must be worn
throughout the tour, which started with a lift ride
that took them 520 feet down into the bowels of
the dam.
The tour, accompanied by a guide who tried
to convert all his imperial statistics into metric for
the group, wound through solid rock tunnels, into
the huge generator room, and on over the
enormous underground pen-stocks where the roar
of water moving at high speed was ever present.
The statistics of the Dam were awesome,
especially when distances were compared to
lengths of football fields. At the base of the dam
above the tail race the full majesty of the dam was
apparent as the crest loomed way overhead.
Two runs of the lift took the group up to the
lip of the dam where they looked out downstream
as the Colorado river continued its journey.
It was difficult to find a vantage point where
all of the dam could fit into camera viewfinders.