{"id":88838,"date":"2025-08-23T01:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T01:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/88838\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T01:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T01:24:07","slug":"like-an-indiana-jones-adventure-the-joys-of-new-zealands-hot-springs-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/88838\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Like an Indiana Jones adventure\u2019: the joys of New Zealand\u2019s hot springs | New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

To get to the geothermal pool of the Squeeze near Taup\u014d in New Zealand<\/a>, you need to kayak across a lake and wade through a stream pinched between the narrow walls of a canyon. As she walked through the forest to get to the pool, Carmen Chan could feel the mud between her toes getting warmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a visceral way to be in the forest,\u201d Chan says. The pool had a hot waterfall, the steam from which created a fogginess \u201clike an Indiana Jones adventure\u201d \u2013 even though the real world, golf courses and highways, was only 6km away. A decade after that first trip, the now 32-year-old Chan is still hooked. The doctor regularly goes to local hot springs to soak her feet after a long shift at Rotorua hospital.<\/p>\n

A family explores the Squeeze, a warm stream leading to hidden thermal pool with a hot waterfall, near Rotorua. Photograph: Derek MorrisonThe hidden thermal pool at the Squeeze. The area around Rotorua and Taup\u014d is home to pools that can be as warm as 90C. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

Rotorua, three hours\u2019 drive from Auckland in northern New Zealand, has geothermal pools thanks to the Taup\u014d volcanic zone, an area of activity caused by the Pacific tectonic plate melting as it is pulled underneath the Australian plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cGroundwater seeps through the crust and gets heated by magmas deep below,\u201d says Adrian Pittari, an earth sciences lecturer at the University of Waikato.<\/p>\n

Steam rises from a thermal pool in Waiotapu thermal area near Rotorua, three hours\u2019 drive from Auckland. Photograph: Photographer: Derek Morrison\/Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

On a map of New Zealand\u2019s hot springs there\u2019s a trail of bright red dots, indicating springs of up to 90C, around Rotorua and nearby Taup\u014d. The water has sometimes been as deep as 5km underneath the Earth\u2019s surface where rock melts. Blue dots represent slightly cooler hot springs, created by the ambient heat of the Earth, scattered through the North Island and New Zealand\u2019s Southern Alps.<\/p>\n

A hot water beach in Lake Tarawera, Rotorua. The area is home to many geothermal pools thanks to the Taup\u014d volcanic zone. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

Where hot water spills from the earth, people have always gathered. Historical photos <\/a>show M\u0101ori in the Rotorua area cooking food by lowering a basket into a near-boiling hot spring, or placing food underground to be cooked by steaming geothermal vents. At Whakarewarewa, a geothermal village in Rotorua, food is still prepared this way, and sold to visitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Teenagers visit a hot water vent on Lake Rotoiti in Rotorua to swim. Tourists have been coming to the area since the 1800s. Photograph: Derek MorrisonTeenagers heat up cans of beans in the warm water at Lake Rotoiti. M\u0101ori have traditionally used hot springs for cooking. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

Hot springs have attracted tourists to the Rotorua and Taup\u014d region since the 1800s, with the New Zealand government paying for spas and health resorts to be developed starting in 1880.<\/p>\n

Today, geothermal activity remains a key draw for the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so dynamic and visual, you can see the Earth in action,\u201d says Pittari. Numerous resorts and geothermal areas have been developed as tourist sites, with paid entry, spa treatments and information about the natural and human history of the area. Many, like Whakarewarewa,<\/a> are owned and operated by M\u0101ori. The area also has geothermal electricity stations, providing power into the grid.<\/p>\n

Locals warm up in the thermal waters of Spa Park\u2019s Otumuheke Stream. The pools attract locals and tourists alike. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

For locals, though, affordable basic hot springs or totally free sites in the forest are the way to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to go to the hot springs every Wednesday,\u201d says Joel Mani, who grew up in Rotorua, making visits to the hot pools a regular routine with his family until he moved to Hamilton for work last year. It\u2019s further now, but he still makes his way to a thermal pool whenever he can.<\/p>\n

His favourite pools, near Waiotapu between Rotorua and Taup\u014d, have a warm spring right next to a hot one, and nearby parking with no thrashing through the forest required. Kerosene Creek, a warm river in the Kaingaroa Forest, is popular too, often filled with people soaking in the terraced pools.<\/p>\n

Bathers swim in the thermally heated waters of Kerosene Creek near Rotorua. Geothermal pools tend to smell like rotten eggs due to the hydrogen sulphide. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

Going to a hot spring is social and relaxing. \u201cSometimes, it\u2019s deep enough to do a manu<\/a>,\u201d Mani says, referring to the distinctive style of doing a bomb with one leg out popular in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

On his weekly hot pool trips, he brings lots of water or other beverages to stay hydrated, and waterproof speakers to play music. One of the trade-offs is the persistent smell of hydrogen sulphide, \u201clike farts or a toilet\u201d, from the springs, but \u201cyou get used to it\u201d, Mani says.<\/p>\n

Locals enjoy a thermal pool at the head of a tributary to the Waikato River. The area also has geothermal electricity stations, providing power into the grid. Photograph: Derek Morrison<\/p>\n

Pittari likes the pools around Wai-O-Tapu for their diversity of geological features, colourful sinter deposits and steaming pools rimed by minerals carried by the water from deep in the crust.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Pittari says, the plate boundary will shift and there won\u2019t be so much heat to supply the steaming streams, pools and waterfalls in the area. But that is millions of years away, and in the meantime humans can enjoy them. \u201cPeople want to sit in hot water and enjoy these unusual places on our planet\u2019s surface,\u201d Pittari says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To get to the geothermal pool of the Squeeze near Taup\u014d in New Zealand, you need to kayak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-88838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}