I’ve Been to Hell and It’s Good

So I left Lanarch Castle at 6:30 am to drive about an hour to the Dunedin Airport. I flew from Dunedin to Auckland (in the North Island) and on to Rotorua via a puddle jumper. Seriously folks, this 45-minute flight was via an airplane with 14 passengers. Two single rows of seven with an aisle about as wide as a female size 4. No potties or refreshments on this baby. I was glad when we finally touched down. I picked up my car from Avis (terrible service but that’s a long story) then headed directly to Hell’s Gate. 

Doesn’t sound too enticing, does it? Hell’s Gate is actually a thermal park and spa. It’s called Hell’s Gate because of the acres and acres of bubbling sulphur and mud streams. It has the largest hot water waterfall. At 40 degrees celcius (104 Fahrenheit), this is one hot mama.

I strolled though the thermal walks for about 45 minutes then headed to my salvation– a warm mud bath about 12 feet in circumference. The mud has at least a half dozen mineral properties. They had 4 baths and I was the first one in my bath. About 5 minutes after I settled in, the Maori guy running the baths came over and said, “Miss….can these gentlemen join you?” And behind him were 4 guys in their 20s. I’ll let you guess my answer. Hell had just gotten even better. 

Two of the guys were from Scotland, one was from Southern France and one was from Wellington. They were in Rotorua for a 4-month training school to become commercial pilots.  We had a blast in the mud pool, took outdoor showers, then headed to one of the sulphur pools. Both the mud and the sulphur water felt heavenly. When we were done, our skin felt so smooth and the mud was supposed to also be mood enhancing–which was perfect because I had just begun to feel my first signs of road weariness after the two flights today. There are no photos from the mud and sulphur baths– cameras don’t do well in these environments, to say the least. 

It was one of the Scottish guy’s 24th birthday and they were headed to one of micro-breweries in town and they asked me to join them. In all honesty, I felt tremendously honored that they were willing to hang out with me since I was over twice their age, but…I was over twice their age. Too weird for me. Okay, and I also had plans to join the owners of my farm stay accommodation for dinner within the hour and that would be terribly rude to show up late since they had offerered to cook dinner for me. It was growing dark and I still had to find their place up in the hills, also!

The owners of the small farm (only 10 acres) came to Rotorua 3 1/2 years ago. They are from a small town south of London. Their daughter met a Kiwi, fell in love and got married.  They decided it would be much simpler to move to New Zealand then  

  

  

  

  

 try to handle traveling back and forth. They are both in their mid-60s. They have sheep, alpaca, 2 pigs, a couple of ram and 2 dogs (Bess and Tui). They made a fabulous 4-course dinner (vegetarian, per my request) with most of the ingredients coming from their own property and gardens. The only thing that didn’t come from their land was the copius wine we drank during and after our meal. It was a lovely afternoon and evening. I have the upper floor of their house and my wonderful balcony looks out onto Lake Rotorua. The 2nd and 3rd photos are of my view. The fourth is the hottest waterfall in the world (104 degrees F). And the fifth is part of the rainforest on the thermal walk.