About Rotorua Duck Tours
Rotorua Duck Tours operates New Zealand's only amphibious WWII-style landing craft, taking visitors on guided sightseeing tours that transition seamlessly from road to lake. Departing from their store on Fenton Street, the tours combine Rotorua's city landmarks with splashdowns on multiple lakes — a format that's been running since 2003 and remains completely unique in the country.
The flagship City & Lakes Tour runs 90 minutes and covers four lakes — Okareka, Tikitapu (Blue Lake), Rotokakahi (Green Lake), and Tarawera — with splashdowns on three of them. The newer Tarawera & Lakes Eco Tour extends to two hours with a deeper focus on the volcanic landscape and ecology around Lake Tarawera. Both tours include fully narrated commentary covering Maori migration history, the 1886 Tarawera eruption, and the geothermal story of the region.
The novelty of driving into a lake never gets old, but the real value is the guided commentary. The drivers double as storytellers and cover ground that most visitors miss — the sacred significance of the coloured lakes, the buried Pink and White Terraces, and the eruption that reshaped the entire district. It's one of the few Rotorua activities that works well in any weather, since you're under cover in the vehicle for most of the trip.
