The secondary schools' national kapa haka competition, Ngā Kapa Haka Tuarua o Aotearoa, has officially kicked off today in Nelson with 42 groups and 2000 performers expected to take the stage in the week-long event.
But some haka groups are yet to arrive in the region from Auckland due to flight delays and cancellations.
Bay of Plenty-based groups Te Wharekura o Ruatoki, Raukura and Te Puku o Te Ika have been stuck in Auckland since yesterday morning and were forced to stay overnight.
“We stayed at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori [ā-rohe] o Mangere and we’re really grateful to them for opening their doors and feeding us, giving us blankets, some of us had already sent our blankets to Nelson,” said Te Puku o Te Ika teacher Te Rau o Te Huia Pou.
She said the flight cancellations have been tough on the students.
“We’ve been here since six o’clock in the morning and at the moment we have nowhere to go so Air New Zealand is trying to organise a room for us to keep our kids in. So it’s looking like all day hanging out at the airport.”
The team is set to perform on Thursday and will likely have a day to prepare once they get down there.
“[Overall] the mood, the kids, they think this is a big adventure so they’re quite high-spirited, they’re excited to get to Nelson and perform, it’s just getting there, it’s prolonging it, but yeah, we’re trying to keep optimistic, positive about it.”
Flights were disrupted again this morning due to fog – 12 flights were cancelled and 15 delayed.
In a statement to 1News, Air New Zealand said they have put on additional service from Auckland to Nelson to help rōpū traveling to the kapa haka competition.
Arihia Stirling, chairman of Ngā Kapa Haka Tuarua o Aotearoa, told Breakfast this morning the logistics for putting on the event was huge.
“We have just over 2000 students that have travelled throughout the country to come to this competition. Five hundred teachers and support people that work with them, 36 of those teams come from the North Island, six come from the South Island and we have something... three ports they are flying from over the last couple of days and again tomorrow and it's just been an epic event to organise.”
And despite the circumstances, Stirling said the committee is grateful to the national air carrier for going “above and beyond” in getting stranded groups and judges to the competition.
“The weather is something that none of us can control but on behalf of the committee, we thank Air New Zealand for their support.”
Glossary
kapa haka – Māori performing arts; haka group (kapa)
kapa – group, team
rōpū – group
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