A long-dormant Rotorua hot spring is the latest geothermal feature to bubble back into life, giving scientists hope the town's geysers are showing positive signs of recovery.
If sightseers are lucky, they can catch a sight of a vent on Puapua hot spring sporadically spurting plumes of steam and water into the air.
The previously dormant spring is located near the world-famous Pohutu Geyser at Te Puia New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua's Te Whakarewarewa Geothermal Valley.
Te Puia general manager of visitor experience Taparoto Nicholson can still remember when he used to cook in Puapua hot spring, back when he worked as a carver in the early 1980s.
Mr Nicolson said he would come down to the pool on his 30-minute lunch break and lower wrapped food such as sausages or eggs attached to a rope.
It was one of the few alkaline pools in the valley, with "cooking quality water", so would have been well used by villagers in the past, he said.
