In Defence of Lost Cultures

If I were to win the lottery and having built my strawbale house, planned my pottager garden and laid out my apple orchard, found myself with a few million to spare, I would become a philanthropist, like a latter day George Gray perhaps, and my first investment would be to rebuild the spa at Te Aroha. 

Te Aroha has had a spa since 1883 when eight hectares of land were gifted to the crown by Marutūahu chief Te Mōkena Hou in 1880.  Prior to this it is highly likely that local Maōri had used waiariki (large bathing pools) for bathing, but the government of Premier Julius Vogel saw the commercial potential of building colonial versions of popular European spas on the site of some of the country’s many natural springs, and decided to establish three government spa facilities at Rotorua, Te Aroha and Hanmer Springs.

The spas operated on three levels: they were designed primarily for tourists, and so no expense was spared on their aesthetic appeal; to supplement their patronage, they also catered for “invalids”.  This served to reinforce the therapeutic legitimacy of the spa; and thirdly, in a particularly quaint piece of cultural apartheid, they served the local Māori, who were confined to their own separate quarters, even though they had given the land over for development in the first place. 

Between 1883 and 1894 Te Aroha expanded rapidly, becoming New Zealand’s most patronised spa.  It achieved this because of its two principal virtues: firstly it was in easy reach of Auckland by rail, and by sea from the Firth of Thames; and secondly, it was fed by hot soda water that spilled directly from the rocks (unlike the highly corrosive waters of Rotorua).  Naturally, Te Aroha became an irresistible tourist attraction and centre for balneotherapy.

The spa sits on the western side of the Kaimai ranges, like a jewel at the bottom of a gold digger’s bag.  In the winter, the sun rises low over the hills, only arriving in the town late in the morning, but the sunsets across the rich alluvial plains of the Waikato last long into the evening.  Notwithstanding its obvious appeal, when the railway reached Rotorua in 1894 – the very year that physiotherapy was born in England – the Te Aroha spa began a long, slow decline that has never fully been arrested.  In 1901, sensing that the Victorian love of the natural spa was being eclipsed by the new century’s promise of innovation and technology, the government re-invested in the site, replacing some buildings and adding others, but the expected benefits did not materialise and the all-important tourist trade gradually declined.  When Te Aroha was bypassed by Rotorua and Hanmer as the main convalescent and rehabilitation facilities for soldiers returning from World War One, the writing was on the wall.  

The second half of the twentieth century was no more kind to the spa.  Water supplies dwindled, and despite numerous attempts to locate new sources, the soda streams that had made Te Aroha famous all but collapsed.  People’s attitudes also changed.  People no longer wanted leisure pools and aix massage.  They wanted technological fixes.  And so massage practices went into decline and electrotherapy took over. 

By the 1980s, the Te Aroha Spa had become a tourist attraction more for its arcane memories of a bygone era than for its practical value.  (The once impressive Cadman Baths were turned into a museum and the Tea House on the hill stands dormant to this day).  The whole domain site had become like a toy that a child had grown out of; disregarded, ignored and unloved.

So why would I throw my millions at restoring the spa?  Well for two very good reasons. 

One, because people still love spas.  You only have to look at the money spent each week on massages, spa pools, and general pampering by rich townies with too much disposable income to know that spas are still important in people’s lives. 

And two, because spas work.  Despite what the po-faced evidence-based practice zealots might say, spas help people (and here I don’t just mean rich Aucklanders, although I’m sure they help them too).  I mean that spas help the kinds of people we work with: people with arthritic knees; people with Parkinson’s disease; children with cerebral palsy; people who can’t walk, stand and sit because they’re in pain. 

And why Te Aroha?  Well I think Ian Rockel says it best; “Te Aroha has retained its spa appearance.  Of all New Zealand’s geothermal areas, the Domain at Te Aroha looks most as it did in Edwardian times.  Some of the old bathhouse buildings remain and the formal gardens have been only slightly altered; they are not dotted with barbecue grills, and hydroslides don’t loop their way downhill”. (Rockel, 1986, p.50).

So my plan is this.  I’m going to restore Te Aroha to its former glory.  It will have palm trees in the hallways and green Victorian tiled sunken pools.  We will have massage rooms and a proper gymnasium, there will be raised beds in a therapy gardens, and there will be walkways and gardens to sit in. 

We will take people for a week of rest and exercise - people like my grandma who has a dodgy hip and her friend who’s had a stroke – and we’ll offer them the best rehabilitation they could get anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.  And after their week’s stay, they’ll return home and work on their new plan for the rest of the year until the time comes for them to visit us again.  We’ll reduce their need for surgery, medication and hospital visits, and save the health service a fortune.  But more importantly, they will feel better, and they will leave the spa renewed and more able to do the things they want to do.  And if they don’t leave feeling as good as this, they can have the next treatment for free. 

Now, where did I put that lottery ticket?

By David Nicholls