Bubbling away, naturally
Take off your white coat and plastic gloves if you're visiting a New Zealand spa - because there's nothing clinical about the services on offer. In fact, you're more likely to find yourself sitting outside half-naked, wallowing in mud up to your neck, surrounded by native bush and looking out over steaming, natural hot pools.
New Zealand, sitting as it does on the Pacific Rim of Fire, is home to many natural hot springs and bubbling pools of sulphur-laden mud. The thermal wonderland of Rotorua is the best-known location, but Hanmer Springs in the South Island is another gift courtesy of madame nature. There, the sight of lily-white bathers sitting in outdoor hot pools while snow falls around them has resulted in some brilliant photo opportunities.
Sure, you can be pampered to within an inch of your stressed-out Prozac-propped life at The Golden Door in California, but you’ll still have to step outside and cross the road at the end of it.
The New Zealand spa experience is gearing up to be something quite different. Take the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua. It has the advantage of being built on natural hot springs that have been frequented by locals since the 19th century.
'We offer a pretty special environment,' says Martin Lobb, whose family has owned the business on the site of an historic hot spring since 1972. 'We're built on a natural hot spring, whereas most places in the world aren’t. We’re unique in world terms. There has been a spa on this site for 120 years and one of the first European buildings in Rotorua was built as a spa - the bathhouse.'
It would be easy for Lobb to loll about in the pool, resting on the area's natural assets, but Rotorua’s tourist numbers have shown a marked increase in the past year and, subsequently, requests for more extensive spa services.
That led to the development of the Lake Spa Retreat, which opened at the Polynesian Spa in December 2000. The Retreat has eight therapy rooms and offers everything from 30 minute massages through to 90 minute spa therapies.
But although Lobb has opted to incorporate international style treatments into his Kiwi facility - he has developed the new retreat with a distinctly Kiwi aspect in mind, keeping true to the clean, green image of the country.
'I've visited an awful lot of spas in the last few years in America, Asia and Australia, and a lot of them are developed for the city slicker who goes in to get his stress relief. In many cases the spas are limited for space and have been developed as a bit of an add-on,' says Lobb. 'A lot of the treatment rooms are claustrophobic. They're small with no natural light and no windows.
'We've done things differently here. We have windows in all our treatment rooms and some of them look out over the lake and some of them look out over bush. They're airy, and in warm, inviting relaxing colours.
'We didn't want them to look like a lot of the spas I saw, which were clinical with white tiles and stainless steel. You felt like you were about to have your appendix out!'
Those using the Retreat services can sit in hot pools that look out over a lake, feeling free and at one with nature.
Four to five hundred locals already visit the Polynesian Spa daily, while over at Hell's Gate and Wai Ora Spa older people with aches and pains are relishing the chance to wallow in a metre of mud in the mud baths. Visitors slip into the therapeutic mud for 15 minutes, before taking a cold shower to close their pores, then capping off the experience with a dip in the natural spring pools.
This back-to-nature holistic approach to the spa industry is probably best pictured through a startling image seen at the Hanmer Springs website (see link below). A group of bathers relaxes in a hot pool, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and bush, and clear blue skies. And there's not a white tile to be seen…
Further information:
Polynesian Spa
Phone +64 7 348 1328
Email info@polynesianspa.co.nz
Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa
Phone +64 3 315 7511
Email info@hanmersprings.co.nz
Hell's Gate and Wai Ora Spa
Phone +64 7 345 3151
Email info@hellsgaterotorua.co.nz
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