* (DRAMATIC BEAT) Mark Twain ` one of the most famous writers who's ever lived. Even if you've never read his books, I bet you've heard of him. In 1895, he was broke and was forced to do a worldwide lecture tour. He came here. What did he think of us? What did we think of him? And what else was happening in New Zealand at that time? (SLOW COUNTRY MUSIC) Captions by Kristin Williams. Edited by Antony Vlug. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 (GUITAR RIFT) Ah, beautiful Auckland. Well, we're halfway through the series, and at the halfway point of his epic tour, Twain had reached Auckland, which is awesome for me cos my house is just down the road and it means I can go in and grab some clean undies, socks and the like. But for Twain, he was here to make money, and he was still grinding hard out. At Home with Twain was a hot ticket at this point. Bankruptcy inspired him to create a show about how committing all 462 possible sins was a great way to build character. My character owes a lot to arriving in a foreign land as a young fella. And, no, I didn't grow up in Morningside. Te Atatu is my turangawaewae. So this is the street where I met Aotearoa. Beaufield Lane. I came here as a 4-year-old ` adopted by my extended family after the old man died. And I hated it. Um... I was homesick for years, and then I met a kind teacher, and then everything changed. But initially, those first few years were tough. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. Oh my gosh. Look at you. You're a picture of health. Oh, thank you. (GIGGLES) Oh, man. You must be the last original. I am. (LAUGHS) Are you? Yes. (LAUGHS) Te Atatu's changing. I'm the old girl in the street. Well, I'm glad you're still here. Yeah. Oh, it's lovely to see you. And I'm glad you were at home so I could pop in and say hi. Yeah. Yeah. Twain's next booking was Rotorua, but illness forced him to skip it. So in his honour, I'm going to visit. Twain wrote of Rotorua that it was one of the chief wonders of New Zealand, and he was really disappointed that he wasn't well enough to visit. He'd read of the healing powers of the thermal springs district and was fascinated that there was one pool that could cure you of drinking. Mind you, he loved whisky, and apparently he always had one in his hand, so maybe that's another reason he didn't come here. In 1895, the population was barely more than 1000 people. There was no bank, no street lamps, but a year later, it did become the first place in New Zealand to build cycleways next to the footpaths. It's a shame that Twain didn't come here, because Rotorua was the birthplace of tourism in New Zealand, and it really was the place to be. Mind you, there's plenty of people that'll say that even today Rotorua is still the place to be. Somewhere in amongst all the steam ` throngs of people. Local historian Ann Somerville loves how early Rotoruvians upsold mud and water. Would it be fair to say that Rotorua was the birthplace of tourism in this country? Definitely. The cradle of tourism was out at Te Wairoa, and that's where it all began. And with the Maori people, started it and organised it and charging a fee to take people to see the Terraces. When they were covered up and people could no longer view those, was the geothermal activity, is that what saved tourism in those early days? Absolutely. And the government very quickly thought, 'Oh my gosh. We need those people. Let's develop this as a spa. 'We've got these amazing waters.' So that was their reasoning. It's interesting that it was the government of Tourist and Health Resorts that ran the place. The ministry of Tourism and Health Resorts. That's hilarious. Yes. I know. (CHUCKLES) Now, I understand that Rotorua was once called Cure-land, is that right? Yes. Take a trip to Cure-land and relax. They thought that the waters here... the` the thermal waters were going to be just amazing and the rich, ill and famous people were gonna get on boats and come all the way down here. Is that right? But it didn't quite happen that way. But the waters are very special. There's acidic water, and there's alkaline water, and that was something special. Now, Twain was booked to play Rotorua, but he cancelled because he was ill, but it's a shame that he didn't come, because he had carbuncles. Oh. Well, they probably could have. They probably would've popped him in a hot pool and just see what happened. But there were all sorts of illnesses they promised to treat. I mean, there was everything from nervous irritability to loose teeth. Nervous irritability. (CHUCKLES) I get that. And a variety of hysteria, um,... piles and gout. And my particular favourite is kidney mischief. What's kidney mischief? I don't know. Never worked that one out, but I love it. (BOTH LAUGH) The science of curing ills with mud and water was called balneology, and Rotorua's bathhouse was mission control. Our first government balneologist, Dr Arthur Wollman, set up this global glamour spa. It tanked, but he uncovered something world-famous in New Zealand ` the magic magnesium-rich waters that gave us Lemon and Paeroa. Genius. Twain missed out on L&P as well as the healing waters, but I'm in, boots and all. Well, metaphorically. I've taken my shoes off. In 1895, right here was world-renowned. People thought that if you came and had a bath in the mud, you could be cured of rheumatism, gout, sciatica, lumbarg` What the hell's lumbargo? Uh, Mark Twain even heard that you could cure yourself of alcoholism ` no matter how chronic. He thought that once people found that out, there'd be a rush. I don't know if we believe that now, but it does feel nice. I feel my lumbargo bubbling away. (SLOW COUNTRY MUSIC) Twain also missed meeting the woman credited with taking Maori culture to the world. Makereti Papakura was a popular guide who went on to be an entrepreneur, scholar and activist. She was known as Maggie and took a cultural party to England, where she stayed and studied Maori anthropology at Oxford. She's so flash. (WATER BUBBLES) Many Maori left the area after the Mt Tarawera eruption ` their livelihoods and lands in ruins. But the Warbrick whanau stayed. Alfred was a tour guide buried by the ash. He survived and ` together with brother Joe ` built a terrace in memory of their long-lost taonga. His great-grandson James is showing me their legacy. The Pink and White Terraces, of course, the eighth wonder of the world, and we all know, you know, they were covered by the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera. And that was quite a significant event in his life as well, wasn't it? He had just recently, um... started guiding, and the eruption happened. He was actually under the eruption here. And so they hunkered down with all the people that were around him and dug out through the roof of their whare and, um... to find that, you know, this major event has happened. It's hard to imagine the fumes. The sulphur dioxide in the air was poisonous. Wow. That's right. Cos people think that, you know, the danger with the volcano is getting run over by the lava flow, but it's all the poisonous gas in the atmosphere. Yes. This is significant, this spot, because just over there is what? Warbrick Terrace. Named after your` Named after Alfred and Joe? Yeah. Yeah. He` He kind of shaped the land` or landscaped it, I suppose. And, uh, nature... you know, did the rest and formed the different colours and the effects. So, I suppose, you know, that's all that history from the Pink and White Terraces, he wanted to show how` the next best ` how it was formed ` utilising the geothermal energy underneath. Yeah. Coming up ` the 'eyes' have it. New Zealand's oldest prison has some crazy history. Kereopa was accused of lynching, decapitating and then eating the eyes of a German missionary. And some fun and serious games with Toi Iti. Look at you. (LAUGHS) Is that a Tuhoe thing? (LAUGHS) It's just I'm following my instinct here. (LAUGHS) * (SLOW COUNTRY MUSIC) # Happy birthday to Twain. # Yep, November 30 1895, Twain celebrated his 60th birthday in Napier. You'd think a famous visitor would've shaken things up in Napier, but they had their own Twain. Check out George Leitch. Ah, the resemblance, it's scary. He ran the local theatre, and his play Land of the Moa was the hit of 1895. With 10 tonnes of scenery, he recreated the Pink and White Terraces, and his Mt Tarawera eruption almost set the theatre on fire ` literally. It became the most performed play of our country's history. Until the next Naked Samoans show, that is. You'll see. The earthquake levelled the theatre and much of the town, but the prison stood strong. It's actually New Zealand's oldest jail. On Mark Twain's boat trip to Napier, there were four prisoners being transferred from Gisborne, but because the trip was so horrific, Twain wrote that they should've had their sentences cut in half. They weren't, of course. And this is where they ended up. Mr Kightley, we've been expecting you. Thomas Barker is letting me in ` and, hopefully, out again. Time for a roll call of Napier's infamous inmates. Thomas, bro, this is scary as heck. Oh, yeah, it freaks me out too. I won't deny that. (CHUCKLES) How many prisoners would've been here in the year Mark Twain visited? Well, we know that in 1890, there were 34 men and four women in this place, but, of course, that number would've fluctuated hugely. And up until 1911, there would've been men, women and kids in these cells. And bad kids? Mm. And what sort of crimes would've landed you in this place? Uh, well, all sorts. The one that, sort of, seems most bizarre to us today is that after the Vagrancy Act was passed in 1866, you could be chucked in here if you were found drunk on the streets three times in a row. Um, or even if you were a pakeha found in the company of a native person and you couldn't tell the judge where your home was ` prison, hard labour. A white guy would get hard labour for hanging out with Maori? Uh, pretty much. Yes. My gosh. So even though I'm not native to this country, in 1895 you'd be arrested for hanging out with me. (SLOW MUSIC) Whoa. Yeah. I'm glad that we're only in here for an interview and not to do hard labour. So as well as petty criminals and white guys that had Maori mates, there would've been some real bad asses in here as well. Mm. Absolutely. It was just` Everyone was completely intermingled, you know? And even, you know, murderers, they had in here as well. Wow. They had murderers? Yeah. So, were there executions here? Yeah, there were actually... There were four, um, that all occurred in the 19th century. Um... So, starting off during the 1870s, and that was a man called Kereopa Te Rau. Kereopa was` he was a leader, he was a warrior and a visionary of a sect called Pai Marire. Kereopa was accused, alongside five other men, of lynching ` that is of hanging ` decapitating and then eating the eyes of a German missionary, whose name was Carl Sylvius Volkner. He ate eyes? Well, yeah. That's` Again, that's the story. He was called Kai Karu, which means the eye eater. Like so many elements of this tale, there are very conflicting accounts. One reckons that he ate this man's eyes as a way of revenge for his own children who were supposedly killed. Another version of the story says that he pulled out this man's eyes and held them up in defiance of the Queen and of the government and this is what these eyes represented. He went on the run for many years, but was finally found again and brought back here to Napier Prison, where he spent his last few days. And shortly before he was actually put to death, he requested ` uh, we're not sure to whom he asked this, but we know it happened ` that his body, in fact, be spirited away, taken from the prison, because he was terrified that if he was buried here, the prisoners or gaolers might do the same to his body as to what they did to Carl Sylvius Volkner. Kereopa rode across New Zealand with the head of an enemy on a stick. Far, what a full-on guy. His Pai Marire followers also decapitated victims and toured the heads to motivate new recruits. Kereopa was tried for Volkner's murder, but iwi disputed the case for over a century, and in 2014, he was posthumously pardoned. New Zealand has always been a place where religion, ideology and cultures collide ` not to mention fashion and sport. I don't know. I think I'm quite weird, but... I've always had a thing for uniforms. And look at the croquet one. Tuhoe satirist Toi Iti has all the bases covered. He suggested we play croquet, have a cuppa and talk 1895 culture clash. Here we go, Toi. OK. It's all in the swing, remember. Aha. It's all in the swing. BOTH: Oh! Between the uprights. (LAUGHS) So, you know, we're following Mark Twain around, and one thing that he wrote about` Look at you. Look at you all proud. (LAUGHS) Is that a Tuhoe thing? (SCOFFS) This is just, um... following my instinct here. In 1895, was there unity? Was there a sense of... it was 'us' and 'them'? Amongst Maori? Yeah. Hell, no. Wow. Really? (LAUGHS) We still talk about that. You know, there were renowned kupapa which fought on the side of the Crown. And then there were the rebels, the insurgents who resisted ` uh, pulled up the survey pegs and fought against the militia. Do you think the government at that time, the government of the day, thought that they had solved the Maori problem? We were happy natives. We were assimilated. We were taking up roles that were` You know, we were suited towards labour, so they provided laborious jobs for us, and, uh, we were happy` Good at rugby. Good at rugby. Happy-go-lucky. Pass us a guitar and we'll have a sing. And we've really, definitely adopted that persona ` that jolly native-type persona. And that was what they loved, and they loved to roll that out as their success story. And then in the 1970s with Nga Tamaota, they suddenly went, 'No.' And then people were like, 'What?! We thought you guys were happy.' 'What do you mean, though?' 'We thought you guys were all good with all of this stuff.' (LAUGHS) 'What's happened? We're good.' (LAUGHS) 'Here's a guitar.' Cheers. Cheers. Hey, here's to us. (LAUGHS) Here's to us. Mmm. Look, I know that... white folk did terrible things... But you gotta give them props for their pikelets. Pikelets... Holy. ...scones and tea in these little cups. And`And this is a real white man thing, and I love it. (CHUCKLES) (CHUCKLES) Up next ` prepare for next-level Following Twain. Was there anybody here in 1895 when Mark Twain was here having lunch? I try to make contact with the great author in a haunted hotel in Waipukurau. BREEZY SONG: # Wake up, it's a beautiful morning # Wake up # Sun is shining bright for your eyes # Wake up, it's so beautiful # Wake up. # * There's one thing I love doing; it's skimming stones. But if there's no water around, train tracks will do just as well. As Twain was undertaking his epic journey around New Zealand, he wrote this, 'Travelling and lecturing are like oil and water. They don't mix.' There are plenty of fine sights in New Zealand that he hasn't seen. And yet, he found time to see this sight ` the Waipukurau train station. I haven't seen it, but thanks to Twain, now I have. Welcome to water fungus. That's what Waipukurau means. Twain hopped off the train here for a tea break on his way from Napier to Palmy North. While Twain was in Waipukuau, he had lunch in that very building, and during it, he had what he described as a telepathic moment. He was looking at a painting and he had a thought, and in the very next instant, his wife said that very thought, and it spooked him so much that he wrote about it in his notes. And apparently, even today in there, there are still spooky things afoot. Those curtains didn't move, did they? While I was talking? Marianne Coleman talks to ghosts, and she's taking me through the hotel tonight to try and make contact with Twain. These walls have seen a few things. They've seen a few things. There's been murders that've happened here in this hotel. There's been deaths. So it's really` And, of course, the hotel was moved here from its original site, and the land that it's moved to was actually part of Land Wars ground` battleground. So it's kind of like a bit of a perfect storm, really. You investigated this site before? Yes, that's right. We were here a few months ago. And what did you find then? Oh, it was actually, probably one of the most active places we've investigated as an investigation team to date. 12.8 degrees. 12.8. Another spike. We've got a red spike. That means it's close to you. Very close to me. So you've already done a baseline sweep? Already done a baseline sweep. So anything that we pick up from here on in will be new? Will be energy that's unexplained. Mm. This doesn't frighten you in any way? No. No. Not at all. (CHUCKLES) The living frighten me more than the dead do. It's no wonder the Tavistock is a ghost magnet. Built in the 1850s, it's the oldest hotel in the country. You have to push hard. Oh, I like how they don't oil the hinges just for that extra... (LAUGHS) Yeah. It adds the extra ambience, doesn't it? Extra ambience. So I'm taking you down to Ma's room now. Ma Bertrum's room? Ma Bertrum's room. This is where she used to sleep when she ran the hotel. And I'm just gonna ask permission before we go in. Um, Ma, this is your room. I hope you don't mind. I'd like permission to come in and bring Oscar in so we can talk to him in your room, if that's OK. Respect is paramount. So we try and respect spirits like we would treat somebody who's living. It's no different. Just because they're in spirit, they still are due respect. Mm. So this is the nice corner room that she had, and now they use it as a storage room. Yeah. Do you think she's happy about that? No, I don't. Actually, can you feel the temperature just drop? There's just a slight drop of temperature now. I don't think she'll be happy to see her room used as the storage room. She was a very proud woman, and she took a lot of pride in taking care of this place and making sure it was up to scratch. And when she's around, you generally get the smell of violets. You can smell violets. They're not here at the moment. (LAUGHS) I smell musty mattress. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. Eau de musty mattress. Can I tell you this story from when I was 5? Oh, please. So... It was` It was one of my relatives, and I saw him coming around the corner, and he was wearing all white. And then I looked and he wasn't there, but he'd died. Oh, I knew you were going to say that. Really? Yeah. Had he` Had he died just before you saw him? He died before. Yeah. So that's not uncommon. Wow. Very often spirit will try to contact loved ones to let them know that they're OK. Wow. So, I couldn't say, 'Was anyone here in 1895 when Mark Twain had lunch?' cos that wouldn't mean anything? Well, you could` Well, you could ask if anybody was here. Well, let's do that. Let's ask. OK. Was there anybody here in 1895 when Mark Twain was here having lunch? Do you remember him being here? Do you feel anything? Um,... I actually think they're hiding from us tonight. Yeah? Yeah. It's colder in here` Really? They don't wanna be on TV? No, I don't think so. I think they're camera-shy. (CHUCKLES) If you love ghost stories, here's an absolute cracker. In 1896, a war canoe was seen on Lake Tarawera carrying Maori ` their heads bowed and their hair plumed for death with huia and kotuku feathers. Maori believed the vision had one meaning ` it was an omen of disaster. 11 days later, Mt Tarawera erupted. 150 people died in that eruption. Rest in peace.