By JO-MARIE BROWN
Rotorua has long prided itself on being an international spa destination. The reopening of century-old mud baths will provide a glimpse of how that reputation began.
The basement of Rotorua's museum - a bathhouse when opened in 1908 - used to host thousands of visitors a year seeking relief
from their ailments in tubs of steaming thermal mud.
The museum kept the mud baths on display after the bathhouse closed in the 1960s but they have been off limits for more than a decade because of vandalism and access problems.
But Rotorua Museum's research and programmes officer, Ann Somerville, said public interest in seeing where people "took their cure" had sparked a restoration project and, as a result, the mud baths' basement would reopen this weekend.
"They're going to take a step back in time and I think they're going to experience something of the real spa ambience as it was early last century," she said.
Four baths, mud storage vats, boilers, drains, a nurse's station and a shower had been uncovered.
"It's amazing how well the original character has been maintained," Ms Somerville said. "Despite all the atmospheric problems with hydrogen sulphide and the fact that it does flood every now and then, the basement has just stayed on."
A walkway through the remaining basement area has also been constructed so people can see the environment in which employees worked to maintain the facilities of the bathhouse above.
"Mud had to be brought in from Whakarewarewa and a mountain of towels had to be carried down here. It was a very busy place," Ms Somerville said.
The museum expected around 100,000 visitors to the mud baths basement each year.
