September 13, 2025. It is hard to believe that it is day 3 only. I feel like I’ve been away for weeks. It’s been fun though. I’m enjoying the things that we have been doing.
Wake up time came early again around 4:30 AM. We were in bed, however, around 8:30 PM. So you kinda expect the wake up call. Since we were awake and wondering what to do, we planned our drive and day for today. We booked a nature walk, mud bath and mineral pool soak once we arrived in Rotorua. We left our lovely flat at Hot Water Beach around 9:15 AM making the 2.5 hour drive to Rotorua. Driving in the Coromandel Peninsula was so windy. But once we got over the mountains and into the valley, where lots of dairy farming is done, the drive straightened out a bit. But the GPS had us taking a few ‘short cuts’ instead of using something straighter. Heck maybe there’s nothing straight here! It’s been crazy driving all done on the left side of the road. My English driving skills have not left me though and the streets are much wider here than England.
We arrived in Rotorua just before noon. Our thermal soak was scheduled for 2 PM. We are staying in the Princess Gate Hotel in a very old, colorful, room that has the squeakiest of floors. Outside our window, they are doing some massive drilling project and even though it is Saturday down here, they were working with a fairly large crane moving large objects around. Glad we won’t be in our room much. Since our room was not ready, we dropped our luggage here, called the thermal pool (Hell’s Gate) and asked if we could come early. They really didn’t care. As a matter of fact, they were encouraged us to come early to enjoy the place as much as possible.
Hell’s Gate was a place where lots of thermal activity was occurring. We went for a nearly one hour walk observing lots of stinky, sulphur smelling, pots of bubbling water. It was a lot like Yellowstone as you walked and observed similar things. Not as pretty as Yellowstone though. At the conclusion of the walk, they had you go into a little shed and do some Māori carving. That was kind of fun. And we now have a small souvenir to take home. After that, we changed into bathing attire and sat in a mud bath. We’ve never done this before. It was pretty fun. You can only stay in for 20 minutes for health reasons they say. But after you get showered off, you go into the nice sulphur pools for some more soaking. All in all it was a fun, relaxing experience except for the rainstorm that rolled in with strong winds that blew our towels and things all over the place. Would I do it again>. Yea…I probably would. I love the warm, soaking, that goes on. The bad news is that your clothes need to be specially washed which we cam back and did in our hotel room. They need to be washed twice with special soap to get the mud and sulphur smell out. So our bathroom is a laundry room now.
We walked up the street in another rainstorm to a Kebab shop. It was pretty good…but not as good as our friends in Lingfield, England. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable and we were able to get out of the rain. Then looking for ice cream, we walked a bit further to find a ‘food mall’, a street that had nothing buy nice looking eateries on it. Oh well, maybe another day.
Lastly, one funny experience, was at the gas pump. They do have pay at the pump capabilities. So I tried a few cards and they all were rejected. So I went inside and told the lady that I was from America and my card wasn’t working. She said, “I’m not sure we can take your cards.”. I thought…really?!?! I then said, let’s try using it inside. She said that we then should put an amount, like $50, in first. I asked her if I don’t use that much would she give me change back. She said “No”. I just scratched my head. I said ok. Fortunately, it took all $50. So I went back in and asked her if I can now fill it. She then told me that her manager said that our cards don’t work at the pump but work inside…as we just proved with the first $50. I then asked her if I could just fill it the rest of the way. She finally agreed. And that worked fine putting another $30 in. Now these amounts are in NZ dollars which in the end was about $48 US dollars. That was for just half a tank. Gas is pretty darn expensive here.
Tomorrow is Sunday and we’re looking forward to attending a ward here in Rotorua. More to come….
Pictures:
Hell’s Gate thermal pools. I will share a number of pictures at Hell’s Gate. But imagine walking around Yellowstone looking at similar, sulphur, smelling pools.
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