About | Kuirau Park
Wind your way through Kuirau Park, discovering and experiencing the steaming, bubbling and hissing geothermal action right in the heart of Rotorua. Go along a boardwalk crossing the steamy lake with steam rising and gently blowing past warming your body. There’s lots of thermal activity going on and it’s a delight to see.
Being located close to the city centre, you can find your way here on foot or park up next to the playground and start your adventure from there. The kids will enjoy the swings and climbing frames, there’s even a paddling pool for them to splash around in. You can also bring a frisbee or cricket set and have a good run around and play on the big field opposite. Bring out some lunch and enjoy something to eat right by the water’s edge on one of the picnic tables.
Afterwards, go for a little explore of Kuirau Park. You’ll enter under an archway where there’ll be barbeques and also nice mineral foot pools to warm your toes. Take off your shoes or slip off your jandals and relax before or after your walk, it’s delightfully warm.
Wander past flowerbeds and past native trees and see hot geothermal activity but don’t worry, all of the hot stuff is surrounded by barriers. Stick to the track and keep following it, across the road where you’ll see lots of steamy activity and hot streams. Come on a cold day and the steam will be even thicker, sometimes blowing past and onto the tracks until you’re surrounded in a blanket of white until it completely blows away.
Near the end you’ll find a very steamy lake and on some days you might not even be able to see it at all because the whole thing will be covered in a thick blanket of steam. Get closer to it by walking along the boardwalk that goes across it, this is also a great spot to take a photo! Then find your way back the way you came.
Visit on a Saturday and browse the food, clothes and craft stalls of the local flea market. Grab some food and listen to the buskers play. It’s held every week from 7am – 1pm.
Eruptions do occur every now and then so it does pay to be a bit cautious. The last ones happened in 2001 and 2006 with mud flying up to 15 meters in the air and with a 30-metre radius.
Toilets: by the playground.
Nearby
The Gathering Place (Tamaki Maori Village)
Location
Find parking beside the children’s playground along Kuirau Street.
Photos
The last time we were in Rotorua was about two years ago and we are loving the new additions with the sheltered barbeque, picnic tables and more especially the foot baths to warm our feet in. It’s a truly beautiful setting.
Pulling the boys away from the foot baths we continued on. The flowerbeds were looking very beautiful and the kids enjoyed climbing the trees and peering over the barriers to find bubbling mud pools blowing out big puffs of steam.
Coming back the way we came, we stopped off and had a little play in the playground. We loved watering around the place and even better – it’s all free!
