Rotorua Day Three – Hell's Gate and White Water Rafting

On our third day, we decided to check out some more of that boiling mud that Rotorua is so famous for. Whilst we were at it, we also thought we'd throw ourselves down the highest commercial white water drop in the world in a small rubber raft. These things come in a two-for-one package, so we went with the boiling mud first.

Hell's Gate is about 10km outside of Rotorua and gets its name from George Bernard Shaw, who visited the place a while back and named it because he imagined it to be what “the gates of hell” would look like. There are numerous pools of mud around the park of varying degrees of temperature, from a mild 40 to a whopping 115 or so. In some of the cooler ones you can wade in a little way and feel the warm mud squelch around your feet – we did and it was warm and squelchy.

The highlights were, predictably, the hottest pools, where large amounts of foul smelling steam rises in between violent bubbling bursts of gas that throw molten mud dangerously close to the watching spectators. Other interesting pools included the “Cooking Pool” which local Maori used to boil their hangi rather than using the more traditional method (see previous post), and the “Priest's Pool” where in days of yore some local nutcase would wade into water approaching 60 degrees, have various visions, then leave apparently unscathed.

Once we'd had our daily fix of mud, we moved on to the adrenaline charged part of the day – which was conveniently situated next door. We were swiftly kitted out in wetsuit, life vest, helmet, paddle and some very un-manly footwear called “booties”. With that we were whisked into a bus and ferried to the beginning of the white water. There were three rafts going that day, and ours was to be skippered by a wild eyed Maori called Johnny who we were told (I think jokingly) had just been released from prison, and who's wife had (I think in all seriousness) just given birth to his fifth child. Whatever the reason Johnny was in a great mood, laughing and joking with us all the way down the river, making us laugh with classic lines such as “Don't fall out of the raft or you will die!” and “Better paddle hard or the raft might flip!” Hahaha Johnny.

Anyway, after a couple of small drops it was time for the big one – a waterfall with a 7m drop. I'll let the pictures tell this story:

Liz is the one at the back on the right – the one with her head down and her eyes shut in picture 2. I'm in front of her, and actually appear to be enjoying myself – that is until we are completely submerged under the water in picture 4.

I then find myself sitting on the floor in the middle of the raft in picture 6. In pictures 7 and 8, I slowly manage to recover myself and move back to my original position. However, Liz doesn't seem too happy - she looks like she's about to burst into tears!

After that terrifying ordeal, the rest of the day is a bit of a blur – apart from the “surfing” incident right at the end of the rafting. Here, because of a back eddy, it is possible to position the raft facing upriver, so that it “surfs” on one of the rapids and not down it. At this point, allegedly so as to balance the raft, Liz was instructed to kneel down at the front, and not paddle. After some 20 seconds of surfing, we inched closer and closer to the rapid until ...