About Rotorua

About Rotorua

One thing that many New Zealanders and visitors share is a love-hate relationship with Rotorua (ro-to-roo-ah). It's the spurting geysers, sulfur springs, bubbling mud pools, and other thermal features that set this region apart -- but with the sulfurous smell that hangs over the city, some say the farther apart the better. However, this unashamedly touristy town has capitalized on nature's gifts to become not only one of the country's most famous tourist spots but undoubtedly the envy of more sweet-smelling but financially struggling cities.

Rotorua sits smack on top of the most violent segment of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, which runs in a broad belt from White Island in the Bay of Plenty to Tongariro National Park south of Lake Taupo. Wherever you turn in this extraordinary area, the earth bubbles, boils, spits, and oozes. Drainpipes steam, flower beds hiss, jewelry tarnishes, and cars corrode. The rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulfide hangs in the air, and even the local golf course has its own thermal hot spots where a lost ball stays lost forever. Don't worry too much about the odor, though. Locals advise going outside and taking a deep breath -- in no time, you'll be so busy enjoying yourself that you won't even notice it.

The city's well-established Maori community can trace its ancestry to the great Polynesian migration of the 14th century through the Te Arawa tribe, whose ancestral home is Mokoia Island in Lake Rotorua. The whole area is steeped in Maori history and legend -- for hundreds of years, the Maori have settled by the lake and harnessed the geological phenomena, cooking and bathing in the hot pools. They also recognized the water's curative powers, knowledge they passed on to European settlers around the mid-19th century. What worked then works now; the lakeside Queen Elizabeth Hospital still specializes in treating arthritis and other joint and muscular diseases.

The countryside near Rotorua includes magnificent untamed territory with lakes and rivers full of some of the largest rainbow and brown trout on earth. Fishing is big business all throughout the area that spreads down through Taupo and on into Tongariro National Park. If you're dreaming of landing the "big one," this is the place to do it.