Rotorua’s hot for all the family
Simon Maude discovers that warm, welcoming, exciting Rotorua banishes winter’s cold.
Experiencing Rotorua stays with you days after saying goodbye. A whiff of sulphur still laces my clothes, sparking happy memories from my young family’s welcome-filled, adventurous stay there.
Destination Rotorua arranged for my wife, daughter, and I, a weekend crammed with some of the best activities the central North Island volcanic hotspot has on offer.
Our base of operations was the comfortable Rydges Rotorua, located minutes away from the central city and all our activities.
Said to be Rotorua’s largest hotel, we’re put up in a twin deluxe spa room.
Arriving on a cold and wet Friday night, the three of us quickly fall into comfy slumbers in the twin queen beds waking freshened for a full-on Saturday.
Destination Rotorua’s briefing notes shouted manaakitanga!, which in spirit means host responsibility, something Adventure Playground operations manager Keith Kolver embodies.
The 27-year adventure tourism veteran loves his job showing people around the 303-hectare, panoramic hill-country fun spot.
Hunched behind the wheel of one of the playground’s terrain-defying five-passenger 4WD buggies, Kolver non-stop narrates our drizzly hourlong trip through steep farmland and native bush trails.
We’re enveloped by lush totara and rimu-filled native bush as we grind our way up to the summit along the narrow, rutted ‘‘hobbit’’ track.
Guests and staff feel exhilarated by the buggy and quad bike fourwheel-driving, clay pigeon shooting, and all ability horse treks, and feed off each other, Kolver says.
‘‘How can you not be happy being around people who want to have a great time? Our success is down to choosing the right staff.’’
Since opening more than three years ago, Adventure Playground has rocketed from No 36 to No 2 on Trip Advisor’s Rotorua adventure activity rankings.
Kolver’s taking our buggy tour slow for our four-year-old, but says more gung-ho passengers egg him on to gun-it through the bush, something he’s happy to oblige. Adventure Playground also offers shorter buggy tours.
Journeying between attractions is its own little adventure in New Zealand’s bestselling vehicle.
Ford kindly furnished us with its technology laden 2015 Ranger XLT double-cab ute. The ute’s effortless 3.2-litre, turbo-diesel performs handsomely, we get to and from, in and around Rotorua, on just three quarters of a gas tank.
If you’re going to buy the Ranger, I’d strongly suggest splashing out on a tray cover to fit luggage that otherwise consumes rear seating.
As the weekend weather packs in, Rotorua’s Te Puia area in Te Whakarewarewa Valley revelled in all its steamy glory.
Huddled under guide Huia Clayton’s umbrella, we trudge around the geothermal hotspot’s well-manicured white gravel trails wowing at pungent, hissing geysers wafting in and out of view through thick steam.
There’s only so much rain that parents with a young child can take, luckily Te Puia is much, much more than geysers.
Maori have lived around the 70-hectare site for hundreds of years, and Te Puia also offers visitors a window into contemporary tikanga a-iwi, or Maori cultural practice.
Clayton talks us through indoor demonstrations at the half century old New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute.
In 1963, traditional Maori art forms like wood, bone, and stone carving, weaving, and waka (canoe) making where ‘‘dying off’’, and so the institute was born, Clayton said.
Visitors wend their way through open-air classrooms watching master artisans help students create works of art.
We’ve timed our visit just in time for on-site Rotowhio marae’s cultural performance, which is a smash-hit with our daughter.
The cultural group delivers dance, waita (song), chants, poi, and the full, unabridged Ka Mate haka, popularised by the All Blacks.
Exiting through the gift shop our little girl rushes for poi on sale, determined to launch into her own version of the traditional rhythmic and geometric performance art utilising woven flax balls on string – watch out living room china.
It’s late afternoon and we retire to Rydges Hotel for a couple of hours before dinner. Our room has its own balcony room spa bath to unwind in offering Lake Rotorua views.
Some buffets are more equal than others and then there’s Stratosfare! Wandering in from Saturday evening’s pitch-black cold, we’re made to feel immediately at home in the restaurant’s cosy warmth, 900 metres above Rotorua on Mount Ngonotaha.
There’s not a frown or sad face to be seen in this stylishly appointed eatery. Purposeful expressions peppered the buffet line, customers carefully prioritising what to make room for from the dizzying array of gourmet meat and international dishes.
If the buffet’s gob-smacking array of food on offer isn’t enough, freshly cooked prime rib to venison steak, blueberry pie to scoop-yourown ice cream cones, then there’s the $10 ‘‘premium cure cabinet cuts’’ upgrade.
Stratosfare’s friendly and attentive staff insisted I try the juicy, tender Mangatu Farms wagyu Angus eye fillet steak.
The experience is full of nice little touches. Forget tap water, sparkling water is served standard, and the night we’re visiting it’s Stratosfare’s mid-winter Christmas.
Our daughter squeals with delight as Santa circulates, dishing out presents. We enjoy glasses of Volcanic Hills Sauvignon Blanc as our daughter slurps away on a kids cocktail.
Full to bursting after working our way through several buffet visits, we board Skyline Rotorua’s gondola for the return trip to the carpark below.
With clear skies you can enjoy the swaying silence and spectacular views as greater Rotorua’s twinkling vista floats by. Well worth a try below us is the famed Skyline luge, a plunging all-ages concrete track where carts race kilometres down a 900-metre vertical drop.
Another buffet greeted us on Sunday morning at Rydges. Their breakfast spread sports an automated pancake maker! It would fit nicely in the Ford Ranger’s powered cargo tray.
All buttered-up and treacled we next discover Rotorua’s newest wonder, the Redwoods Treewalk. Think the planet Endor without ewoks, this will get you sort of close to what the treewalk is.
Opened Christmas 2015, the up to 12m elevated walk through exotic Californian redwoods and native rimu towering over fern glades is serene. Elevated laughter and chatter from delighted visitors somewhere in the distance dances off wood. Perhaps of all the attractions seen, soggy winter days heightened the treewalk experience, surrounding greenery shimmered in the misty morning light.
Our daughter’s height anxiety magically vanishes after spotting a much younger boy happily negotiating the wire and timber catwalks, in no time she’s happy and confident metres up. Our guide, retired schoolteacher Ken Morley, says there are plans to build a much higher section and even sleep pods.
Proud of the treewalk’s Germandesigned non-destructive construction, no nails, bolts, or screws go into the trees, Morley says 40,000 people have so far visited.
Before returning to Auckland we have just enough time to enjoy Rotorua’s rawest experience, otherwise known as hell on Earth.
Hells Gate or Tikitere earned its former name from visiting 19th century writer, poet, critic, and atheist, George Bernard Shaw.
Shaw named many of Rotorua’s most geothermally active area’s varying acidity pools and natural features. Provided you stay to the tracks, ‘‘Baby Adam’’, ‘‘Sodom and Gomorrah’’, ‘‘The Infants’’ and ‘‘Devil’s Bath’’ remain fascinating rather than deadly.
There’s a twinkle in our guide’s eye, Adrian Tihema, as he describes the harsh beauty surrounding us.
Those unlucky enough to have fallen into the boiling hot, acidic pools have been known to dissolve within days, he says.
Yet metres away from certain death is definitive relaxation.
Visitors can enjoy public and private hot pool areas giving each other mud facials. Renting togs is a must, the gritty pumice laden mud is sulphur saturated giving clothes a permanent egginess.
A couple of warnings, remove all your jewellery before entering Hells Gate and don’t touch it with bare skin for at least 24 hours.
I remove my silver wedding ring before bathing, placing it in a provided plastic box, a day later it’s gone iridescent yellow.
And watch the hot springs fed private showers, one split-second flick of the mixer in the wrong direction leaves me scalded.
Despite this, the family unit leaves Hells Gate in a blissful state, its water’s mineral heat worked deep into ‘dem bones.