The Hell's Gate Experience

This was a wonderful experience for us. A friend of ours recommended to check it out and we loved every bit of it. I would highly recommend doing the guided walk. The stories and information you’ll find is quite interesting. Everyone at this place is lovely. Do recommend getting towels on site, just makes it easier. The smell can be overwhelming while you do the walk but once you are the mud bath it kinda goes away.

Inside the park is a collection of bubbling mud and sulphur pools, while walking around it occurred to me that the environment that I was seeing is probably how the Earth looked before humans existed. Looking at something so ancient, something that has been around before us humans is a very strange and surreal experience and I'm so grateful to have been able to see and experience it for myself. I spent about an hour on the walk and when I was done, I then headed over to the mud spa. A word of advice before you do this, buy a cheap pair of swimmers that you don't mind throwing out immediately afterwards because you will never be able to get rid of the sulphur smell. My spa experience started with a 20 minute soak in a mud pool, this particular part of the experience is timed to 20 minutes, however the plunge and sulphur pools you can use for as long as you want. my skin has never felt as soft and supple as it did the next day. After my mud bath, I braved the plunge pool, however I only lasted for a few seconds. I then spent some time soaking in the beautiful sulphur spa.

Very enjoyable experience at Hell’s Gate - we did the geothermal walk, the Māori carving, mud pools and spa. Excellent value for money, the mud pools were a real highlight, and friendly and attentive staff