Hanmer Springs

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After a sometimes chilly and a bit tumultuous hike it was lovely to relax in the resort town of Hanmer Springs!

The above picture are all in a cold plunge if you can believe it considering the smiles. The kids were cold plunge stars and the other patrons definitely noticed. Almost everyone here seemed to be from NZ. Must be more of a local holiday spot than Queenstown or Franz Josef.

The resort was built around a hot springs but they have added an entire waterslides complex in recent years. There was hardly ever a line so we certainly got our exercise railing the tube rides. I don’t remember their actual names but readers will know their equivalent as the valley of fear and the toilet bowl. There were also two smaller slides that included trippy light shows and holograms.

Mikaya counts these pools as the highlight of the trip so far. All the kids had a blast. A family day pass including 2 large pizzas was only about $80 Canadian so we took the opportunity to go two days in a row.

I missed getting a picture of the delicious wood fired pizza. Best food we’ve had from a waterslide park!!

Doing hot/cold was great for me and the kids. I could go back and forth for hours. Ty and Zeke got into a bit of an unspoken competition over who could stay in the cold tub the longest. At one point Zeke was in there for about 15 minutes. It took him half an hour in the hot pools to stop shivering. Kylie mostly stayed in the mid temp lounging pools or the waterslides and we all played in the lazy river to cool down.

Cool as a very cold cucumber.

Some of the hot pools smelled like sulphur but it didn’t stick to our clothes like rotorua.

I didn’t get many pics bc the phone was tucked away most of the time, but the pool system was the most extensive and beautiful I’ve seen. Around every corner there was a different pool with its own waterfall feature or specific temp.

After the pools we relaxed at our little three bedroom cottage. One of the first places we have stayed that was part of a resort rather than a home. Small but very functional and a very quiet spot even though it was a 2 minute drive from downtown.

We also got in a walk at Hanmer’s version of the Community Forest. It was fun for Kylie to see a field trip going on and to see the way this forest played things out. The area was heavy on chainsaw carvings but very light on trail design. A decent chunk of the trail system had just been clearcut which proved it was a working forest but was a bit surprising for a tourist town.

Graham and I will have to work on our chainsaw carving skills!