I started writing this in Rotorua but it took a while to finish. I’d been reflecting on my desire for everyone to dance ‘my way’….
Today’s been my first sunny, hot day. Clear & bright, nothing beats the freshness. I could have worn the walking sandals I brought ‘just in case’ but of course I didn’t trust the weather at the start of the day!
I’ve been in Rotorua a day and had the chance for some town and time exploration. The impressive Rotorua museum stands in the old bath house, a memorial to the entrepreneurial medical pioneers of the 1890s.
The late 1800s is an era that captures my imagination. In the west, it seems to me to be a time for avid exploration of the world, the excitement of new places and natural wonders, a time full of possibilities. Yet it’s also a time of order, of strict rules, scientific methods and uncovering the order of the natural world.
The hot springs in Rotorua had already been drawing visitors and the local government sort to cash in on this tourist attraction and create a spa for the area comparable to any in Europe. So we have this structure that wouldn’t look out of place in Bath or Brighton set in traditional gardens with perfect grass, pavilions and bowling greens and just the occasional odd local tree.
The task of creating what these westerners thought was the right way of gardening and construction must have been enormous. Were they just driven by potential profits or could they have had something to prove? I fantasise that in their minds they were taming nature and creating something they considered ‘proper’ that made them feel comfortable and ‘at home’, getting their way.
Even with the local Maori tribe’s gift of the land, they ran out of money and had to curtail the splendour. Added to that the acidic water would not be easily managed. Discolouration and erosion happened almost instantly. So the architect never completely got his way.
The government didn’t either. The medical profession was in the process of defining itself. In the baths, Doctors administered treatments including electric shocks, mud baths, acid and alkaline combinations. In the end though the medical ‘powers that be’ decided that bathing wasn’t proper medicine and the Rotorua spa fell flat.
Is it only hearsay that hot baths are great for aches and pains? I’m sure I’ve felt the positive effects of a hot bath and visitors to today’s spas seem to agree! I wonder who got their way when baths were discredited?
