Unmarked clearing springs warm surprise

By DENISE McNABB

Rain is in the air. The sky turns flannel-grey as we drive around the shore of Lake Rotoiti on the road to Whakatane. At the lake's end we pass the entrance to Hinehopu/Hongi's Track where Hinehopu's "wishing tree" juts into the road on the edge of a dense forest. The slender matai has a viewing platform at its base with a plaque that tells the tale of the Maori chieftainess whose mother hid her under the tree around 1600 to protect her from enemies.

She met her husband Pikiao under the very same tree and it became a sacred part of their bonding. Travellers who perform an "Uru-uru-whenua" ceremony as they pass the matai are said to be protected from evil spirits and assured fine weather for the remainder of their journey.

In 1823, Ngapuhi warrior Hongi hauled his canoes from Lake Rotoehu to Lake Rotoiti on this same track on his way to Lake Rotorua to raid the Arawa people on Mokoia Island. Hence the track's dual names.

But we are not stopping for ceremonies or walking this day. Our destination is the end of the southern shore of Lake Rotoehu, a few kilometres east. We turn hard right on to Manawahe Rd, after nearly missing the inconspicuous turn-off. Rotoma's holiday park is up on the right. Our stop is a few hundred metres along on the left.

No signpost. Just a graffiti-scribbled triangular wooden frame that once protected a baby tree, long since overgrown. It marks the turnoff to a muddy clearing. We park our car facing a small stream on a grassy bank, latticed with ferns.

The southerly wind raises goosebumps on our skin as we peel quickly to bathing costumes, donned earlier. In a thicket of bush close to the road a bubbling, emerald pond has a yellow marker at its edge telling us it is 7ft (2m) deep. A cauldron of moving, scalding water. Not a safety sign in sight, but common sense suggests the thick veil of steam hovering above it is home to a spring that would skin you alive in minutes.

Our sights are on the stream on the other side of the clearing, below the car. Never having heard of this place before and being here by virtue of the local knowledge of my hosts, here's the dilemma: draw attention to this pretty pocket and increase the likelihood of more visitors spoiling this delightful, steamy sanctuary? Or just leave it be for those in the know?

An old "Gateway to Geyserland" Rotorua regional map back home and Sally Jackson's Hot Springs Guide to New Zealand offer the solution. They have both earmarked the place, so it's no secret after all. It is called Waitangi Soda Springs and I can vouch that it is thermal bliss.

You have two choices. There's a pool that is a little less than waist-deep with a broken concrete channel at one end feeding the water to it. The concrete, I am told, is the remains of an effort by some enterprising group to harness the hot waters into organised pools. Nature won.

The other choice - and ours - is lolling around in the stream itself. It's about 45cm deep with a fine gravel bottom and runs 100m or so between the channel pool and a cold stream, which is intercepted by a hot pool coming in to one side.

The collision of the hot and cold creates the perfect bathing temperature. The current is gentle so you can lie on your front or back, up to your neck, bobbing around for ages. The water is glass-clear. Every now and then a swish of the cool stream eddies underneath us, missed in the mixing of the waters. Just when you register the temperature change, it just as quickly returns to warm or hotter, but never enough to burn.

The rusty minerals lying in the bed of the stream momentarily turn our hands orange when we move around. But it soon washes off.

One of my hosts said he brought a Paraguayan visitor to the springs one year. After an hour he asked her what she would like to do next.

"Stay here all day," she replied.



We hear the melodic call of a bellbird in the thick bush on the other side of the stream. Rays of sun pierce the rain clouds. Hinehopu's tree has done its weather trick, even if we didn't stop for the ceremony.

* Waitangi Soda Springs is 38km from Rotorua. Take SH30 from Rotorua to Lake Rotoiti, past the airport. Take a right hand turn to Whakatane and follow the road past Hell's Gate. Turn right into Manawahe Rd just before Rotama and travel 200m until the turn-off on the left. Entrance is free, but there are no changing facilities.