Hangi

 The last week of term: time for a family day at Unlimited Secondary School's new site.  The Halswell Residential School is set in acres of parkland, right next to the Hospital of St John of God.  The chapel wears it's timber, earthquake
props for all to see. 

But our students, use these expansive grounds and buildings, sharing them with their companion primary school, Discovery 1.
In this setting, in such glorious weather, the day had the feel of a music festival.

The highlight of the day for us was the hangi lunch.  We didn't help at all, in digging the pit or preparing the food or laying it down at 5 o'clock this morning.
But how I love that super-saturated smokey flavour, which always takes me back to my very first hangi dug in the Ashley School playing field.  Meat that falls from the bone, cabbage and onion that dissolve in the mouth, potato firm but succulent, kumara, pumpkin, carrot...

Tania serves meat from
the
big baskets
and Rena is served vegetables  that had steamed in mutton cloth parcels.
Delicious.





But: to return to the beginning - the beginning of the Day. Here is a rare view of the mill-steam rising straight up.  This factory produces Medium Density Fibreboard, sold as Customwood, and it's twin steam plumes usually drift sideways according to the wind direction.