Hell’s Gate in Rotorua is New Zealand’s most active thermal reserve. It features pools of boiling mud, geysers, sulphur fumeroles, steam vents and hot geothermal waters. The Maori name for the area is Tikitere, but it became widely known as Hell’s Gate after a visit by English playwright George Bernard Shaw in the 1900s. It is said that Shaw looked down into the hot pools and decided they must be the portals of hell.
Don was given a guided tour of Hell’s Gate by General Manager, Bryan Hughes. Bryan told Don that basically every pool in the reserve was formed by volcanic activity. All the pools are completely separate, with different minerals and amazing healing properties, which the Maori people have used for the last 700 years.
Kakahi Falls
This is the largest hot waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere, with a temperature of around 40°C.
Bryan explained that after battles, Maori warriors used to wash themselves in the falls as the sulphur in the water helped to salve their wounds. This is backed up by modern medicine, and today people bathe in the waters to help relieve problems such as psoriasis of the skin, eczemas and dermatitis.
Mud volcano
Similar in shape to a real volcano, the mud volcano is about 1.8m high and still growing. It regularly erupts and discharges layers of mud or ejects mud bombs over a 5m wide diameter.
WaiOra
Visitors to Hell’s Gate can visit the traditional mud bath and spa and experience bathing in geothermal muds and sulphurous waters, which open the pores and gently exfoliate and clean the skin. After taking a 20 minute mud bath, they relax and revitalize in the sulphur spa. The spa is named after the Kaitiaki warrior ‘WaiOra’, who has looked after its special waters and muds for centuries.
Further information
Hell’s Gate is open daily from 9am-8.30pm
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.hellsgate.co.nz