Secret Sauna, The Best Way to Experience Otago

Travelling the South Island of New Zealand? Have two completely different sauna and local vista experiences, both unassumingly beautiful in their own right but will leave a permanent impression on your heart.

Head out of Wānaka on the Wānaka–Luggate Highway, driving through Albert Town and cross the Clutha River on Albert Town–Lake Hāwea Road. You’ll reach the Lake Hāwea township and lakefront and will rattle your way down a dirt track. The not knowing and the roughness of the approach is all part of the charm.

Lake Hāwea is a lake formed from ancient snowmelt, rainfall and mountain streams and is best enjoyed by staring at length at it. It will reset your nervous system and clear your head. During winter, lake gazing is a chilly experience, so – voila – it’s best enjoyed from a warmed Finnish style sauna.

Why the Barrel?

The curved interior of a barrel can create a pretty efficient space for heating, and for this barrel sauna, sitting on benches enjoying temps of 80–90°C is comfortable for 15 minute stints. The barrel is heated by timber chopped into smaller kindling-like sizes, and the semi-circle window above the sauna stove? Well – that’s the part that will simply take your breath away, it is postcard perfect and that’s where the best gazing gets done. 

Method to the Madness

The recommended Sauna’ing method is to spend 15 minutes in the sauna, followed by a plunge into the quartz-rich waters of Lake Hawea, and the process repeated three times. The result is a feeling of bodily relaxation coupled with mental alertness, the perfect way to enjoy a day off-snow. The Secret Sauna staff check on you from time to time and wave a herbal-concoction infused cloth high inside the sauna, stirring up the air. The herbal cocktail, a secret oils blend infused in water, combined with steam and towel spin, is called Afguss, resulting in opened sinuses rather than watering eyes – so all good there.

You will need swimming cozzies for both locations and you can hire a towel or buy a sauna hat from the lakeside Mongolian Yurt. There is a change room inside to switch between clothing and swim wear and it’s recommended to BYO water bottle, you’ll be thirsty. My recommendation is not to rush away immediately after your experience. Take your time, Nat, the owner and her amazing team will give you a cup of herbal tea and this is your invitation to linger awhile in the yurt and just enjoy life at the pace nature intended, instead of bustling off to achieve the next thing and the next thing…  

Cardrona 

The Cardrona Secret Sauna is the full experience from start to finish in a rural setting on the Waiorau Nordic Road, in the Cardrona Valley between Wānaka and Queenstown. 

Once you park your vehicle in the allocated parking zone, you’re picked up in an old troupie by Pip or Tom, and driven up a dusty track to a picturesque rural dam setting, where several barrel saunas and a Mongolian yurt sit up on the hillside. The process is similar to the Lake experience, dipping three times into a plunge pool or ice cold shower from a tipping bucket shower. Views are elevated across paddocks and from inside the sauna, you look straight up the snow covered mountains (in winter) across from Cardrona Resort and the Big Air jump, the large freestyle jump. 

Both Secret Saunas barrels are quite different to each other, so I can’t choose a favourite. Sitting inside the barrel sauna staring out across nature, a lake or the incredible Alps of the South Island of New Zealand, is really what life is about, that’s about all I know.

Owner Nat has done an incredible job with these two locations, she’s super-passionate about her work and she has managed to create an experience that genuinely gives something back to visitors. I’m all about responsible tourism and often worry about the impact of overtourism on special places. I can already see these locations becoming popular and much loved, but with Nat’s considered booking system in place, they won’t be loved to death – and that’s important for everyone. 

For Lake Hāwea www.thesecretsauna.nz/  and for Cardrona@thesecretsauna.nz

Words and Images: Emma Wilson