Explore Rotorua

Polynesian Spa is a geothermal bathing complex on the shore of Lake Rotorua beside the Government Gardens, on a site where bath houses have stood since 1882. Its 28 mineral pools, between 33 and 41 °C, are fed by the acidic Priest Spring and the alkaline Rachel Spring and include family pools, private pools and pools looking out over the lake.

Government Gardens is a public park beside Lake Rotorua in central Rotorua, on land that Māori gave to the Crown in the late 19th century. Lawns, flowerbeds, bowling and croquet greens and steaming pools surround the half-timbered Bath House of 1908, home of the Rotorua Museum, closed since 2016, and the Blue Baths of 1933; the Prince's Arch dates from 1901.

Ōhinemutu is the lakeside Māori village of Ngāti Whakaue, of Te Arawa, and the original settlement of Rotorua, where steam rises between the houses. Tamatekapua, the carved meeting house of Te Papaiouru Marae, faces St Faith's Anglican Church, completed in 1918, whose interior is carved and lined with tukutuku panels in Māori style.

Whakarewarewa – The Living Māori Village is the home of the Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao people of Te Arawa, in the geothermal valley on the southern edge of Rotorua. Residents guide visitors past the Wahiao meeting house, hot pools and steam vents still used for cooking and bathing, and the village holds cultural performances with kapa haka.

Te Puia is a Māori cultural centre and geothermal park in Te Whakarewarewa valley, on the southern edge of Rotorua. Guided tours lead past Pōhutu Geyser, mud pools and silica terraces to a kiwi conservation centre and the New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute, where carvers and weavers train; kapa haka performances take place on the marae.

The Redwoods – Whakarewarewa Forest covers about 5,600 hectares on the south-eastern edge of Rotorua and is crossed by walking, mountain-biking and horse-riding trails. Beside the visitor centre on Long Mile Road stands the Redwood Memorial Grove of Californian coast redwoods, planted in 1901 as a forestry trial; the tallest tree is about 72 metres high.

Skyline Rotorua is a gondola and luge complex on the slopes of Mount Ngongotahā, on the north-western edge of Rotorua. The gondola, opened in 1985, climbs to a hilltop station with a restaurant and views over the city and Lake Rotorua; from there luge tracks, added in 1986, wind back down the hillside, served by a chairlift.

Lake Rotorua fills the Rotorua Caldera, a volcanic crater that collapsed after an eruption about 240,000 years ago, and covers almost 80 km², with a mean depth of only 10 m. The city spreads along its southern shore, and Mokoia Island, a later volcanic dome near the centre, is the setting of the Māori story of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai.

The Agrodome is a working farm and visitor attraction at Ngongotaha, north of Rotorua, founded in 1971 by the sheep shearer Godfrey Bowen and the farmer George Harford. Its farm show puts rams of many breeds, shearing and sheepdogs on stage, and a covered tractor-trailer tour crosses the 350-acre farm, where visitors feed deer, alpacas and other animals.

The Buried Village of Te Wairoa, south-east of Rotorua on the road to Lake Tarawera, keeps the excavated remains of a Māori and European village buried by ash and mud in the eruption of Mount Tarawera on 10 June 1886. A museum shows objects recovered from the ash, and a trail leads past the excavated sites to the Te Wairoa Falls.

Hell's Gate, known in Māori as Tikitere, is a geothermal park and mud spa on State Highway 30, about 15 km north-east of central Rotorua, owned by the Ngāti Rangiteaorere people. A walking track passes steaming lakes, boiling pools, a mud volcano and Kakahi Falls, a waterfall of hot water, and visitors can bathe in geothermal mud and sulphur pools.