Hells Gate - Geothermal Walk

Explore Rotorua's most active thermal park! Hells Gate is set over 50 acres of highly active geothermal landscape.

Trace the footsteps of ancient Maori warriors past fumaroles and violently boiling mud pools, moving in swirling clouds of steam to explore the vast array of geothermal features and learn the legends and stories of this sacred ground.

Hells Gate Tikitere is a place of extreme contrast. You will encounter remarkable formations and colours, cascading hot water and unearthly vistas.

Price:

• $35.00 Adults
• $17.50 Children

Duration: This self-guided walk takes approximately 45 minutes to an hour

Hells Gate is a brilliant rainy day option. We provide umbrella's on site if the weather is not the best, and a complimentary self-guide map

Hells Gate Highlights:

• Hells Gate Sulphur Bath; a hot mud pool with a high pH of 1.5 making it similar to very strong acid. Learn of how ancient Maori used the pool as a source of potent insecticide.
• The Inferno; an area containing five separate pools with temperatures ranging from 70oC to 110oC. A uniquely hot thermal reserve Hells Gates heat source is located so much closer to the surface at only 1km deep compare with 5-6km deep at other thermal sites.
• Kakahi Falls; the largest hot waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere. The falls carry an ancient significance for Maori as a place where Warriors would bathe their wounds and cleanse the blood of battle. It was also a right of passage for new-born Maori boys bought to the falls by the tribes Tohunga or medicine man to be dedicated to the God of War in a ceremony similar to baptism.
• Mud Volcano; The only example of a mud volcano in a New Zealand thermal park, the Hells Gate Mud Volcano is also unique in size at nearly 2m tall - most mud formations are below a metre in height. About every six weeks the top of the volcano hardens and over 2-3 days pressure builds eventually releasing as the top mud layer erupts over a 5m diameter. Thankfully almost all of these eruptions take place at night.
• Steaming Cliffs; The Steaming Cliffs pool is the hottest in the reserve with minerals in the water acting to elevate boiling point allowing a surface temperature of up to 122oC. There are now also two smaller pools here as the result of an eruption in 2002 - clearly illustrating the activity and ever changing nature of Hells Gate.
• Cooking Pools; See the hot pool used by Maori to cook food
• Medicinal Sulphur Lake; Used by local Maori for generations as a 'medicine lake' to treat all manner of ailments, but particularly for skin diseases and arthritis, This is the only area of the park where visitors can put their hands in the water to feel how soft and warm the water is.

Total    $0.00 NZD