Buck naked in New Zealand

So far, and we have only been here like 4 days, we LOVE New Zealand!

We are in Rotorua, which is on the North Island, it has the most thermal activity in all of NZ and is full of bubbling mud pools, gurgling hot springs and gushing geysers (we haven’t seen any geysers yet, but plan to see some tomorrow).

Today we went on a nice hike around a beautiful, crystal clear lake and then went to 3 all natural, totally free hot springs! Michael and I love to go to hot springs in CO, but these were by far the most beautiful to date! Had to walk a little ways into the bush to get to them. (see pictures on flcker)

The first one was listed in our guidebook. There we meet another tourist who had a hand drawn map to another one. We get there and there is one buck-naked Kiwi! He informs us that this particular hot spring, very tiny with a great waterfall, is nude only. When in NZ…so we stripped down and got in with him. Super hot, but felt great. He also told us about how good the lava ash mud (not the official name but I don’t remember what he called it) was for the skin, so we covered ourselves in it, then rinsed off in the waterfall!

Then he told us about another hot spring that actually was a junction of 2 springs- one hot water and one cold water so we went over there to check it out. He came with and told us a lot about NZ.