{"id":8690,"date":"2025-05-19T20:42:59","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T20:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/traveltales.ahot.online\/?p=8690"},"modified":"2025-05-25T19:09:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T19:09:34","slug":"sea-hanmer-kaikoura-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveltales.ahot.online\/index.php\/2025\/05\/19\/sea-hanmer-kaikoura-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanmer Springs, Kaikoura and Nelson, New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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25.3.-30.3.2023<\/p>

On Saturday we continued from Hokitika to Hanmer Springs. We decided to spend a couple of nights there to visit the Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools.<\/p>

We had driven only a few kilometres when we spotted a sign for a local motocross event on the side of the road. We decided to go and see what it was all about. It turned out to be a children\u2019s race, but we decided to stay and watch for a while anyway. We just happened to catch the start of the oldest group in the race, the 11-12 year olds. These kids were already riding their bikes really fast and making high jumps. This race was really interesting to watch. Next up was the group of the youngest children, which was also fun to watch in its own way. Some of these 4-5 year olds were also going so fast that a less experienced motorcyclist would have had trouble keeping up with them. Some of the kids were slightly slower.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Daredevils ready to go<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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After a while, we continued onwards in rainy weather. Fortunately the rain stopped by the time we arrived to Hanmer Springs. We stayed at a campsite run by the local village community. I think we were about the only ones travelling in a small campervan. Some of the other visitors there had even bigger extension tents than our campervan was. But then again, we\u2019re not spending much time in the campervan. We use it basically only for sleeping and moving from one place to another.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Car storage space is a bit limited in our house.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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For Easter, you can get kiwi chocolate eggs here.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The spa was only a kilometre from the campsite, so we walked there both days. All the pools and water slides at the spa were outside, so we were lucky to have sunny and warm weather. The water in the pools was really warm. Even the coolest pools were +35C. In the hottest pool the water was +42C. You couldn\u2019t sit there for long before you started to sweat. All the water in the hot pools was thermal water, so there was sulphur and potassium in it, among other things. Because of sulphur the hottest pools smelled quite strongly of rotten eggs.<\/p>

Us adults liked the pool with the water temperature +37C. We could have stayed there for the whole day. We didn\u2019t, though. Because occasionally we went with the kids to the water slides too. The kids enjoyed the warm pools too, but most of the time they spent on the water slides and floating in the Lazy River. On the first day, we spent seven hours at the spa. On the second day, we were there for a good five hours before we had to continue our journey to Kaikoura.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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