Four Activities To Fill In Your Trip To Rotorua This School Holidays

8 July, 2021 Bobby Barker

The school holidays have swung back around, and Rotorua remains one of the best North Island destinations for a family holiday. If you’re heading down with the kids to the wonderful central town during the winter break, here’s a quick round up of activities to add to the itinerary these school holidays.

1. Redwood Treewalk

m2-rotorua-redwoods-school-holidays — Credit: Redwoods Treewalk

One of the more interesting and unique activities Rotorua has to offer, the Redwood Treewalk provides patrons with an awesome adventure through Whakarewarewa Forest, along a pathway suspended 75 metres around the ground. It’s not a high-octane activity by any means, so unless your little ones (or yourself, no shame in that) are totally petrified of heights, this is an easy and fun way to fill in an afternoon or evening activity (the after sundown ‘Nightlights’ walk is particularly spectacular).

2. Paradise Valley Springs

A 15-minute drive out of the centre of town, Paradise Valley Springs is an awesome nature park which plays home to a range of native and introduced wildlife. The highlight of the park is arguably the lion enclosure, which sits separate from the rest of the park and hosts a small pride of African Lions. The lions are fed daily at 2:30pm, so that’s something to plan around if you’re going to make the trip. Outside of that, the park has plenty else to offer, with an array of birds and farm animals to interact with, many of which you can feed by hand, as well the Te Waireka freshwater spring and bottling plant.

3. Gondola and Luge

m2-rotorua-luge-school-holidays — Credit: Charlie Brewer

A staple of any Rotorua holiday, the Skyline Gondola and Luge is still one of the most popular ways to spend a day in the town. Best on sunny days (although still a good time even if it’s a bit damp, provided you don’t mind getting your bum a bit wet), the Gondola provides some pretty stunning views of the town and Lake Rotorua, and the Luge itself is a blast for kids and adults alike. Quick tip: get the five-run pass, you always think you will all be bored after three runs but once you start getting the hang of it, you end up regretting not getting the extra runs.

4. Kuirau Park

m2-kuirau-park-school-holidays — Credit: Michal Klajban

You can’t call it a true trip to Rotorua without soldiering through the sulfur smells and checking out some of the town’s geothermal activity. With the awesome Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park unfortunately closed for renovations over the winter, the free-to-roam Kuirau Park still offer some pretty cool hot springs and geothermal features that will be sure to entertain and fascinate the young ones. The bubbling mud pools are always a hit and the crater lake makes for some awesome visuals, as the steam rising from the lake casts an alluring mist across the surface.

Top image: Credit: Redwoods Treewalk