THERMAL SPRINGS IN WELLINGTON PROVINCE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 469, 30 March 1909, Page 7

THERMAL SPRINGS IN WELLINGTON PROVINCE.

Sir—l have read with interest the article by your able correspondent, A. K. Newman. With the bulk of his article. I am quite in accord, but when he states that there is no road to Ketotahi Springs I must differ from him. Ten years ago I first made, tho acquaintance of this most interesting locality 7 f cn is* datc I* , -*™ » good road branching off from tho Waiouru-Tokaanu road, which, after skirting tho shores of bake Roto-aira, passed the Maori villages of Otukou and Papakai (made famous by reason a« encounter between Colonel &, John and _To Kooti), thence out on to tho Waimarmo Plain. As soon as it reached the P £1 &I,arp "P to the m ascended the Jower slopes of Tongariro. lliere has since been built a fairly decent hut, about two miles below the Kotetahi Springs and this is much used by visitors, although- if it was supplied with a fireplace it would be a god-send. There is a fireplace there but rfc is situated about half-a-chain from the hut, and is a small poky show at the best, and m tbosc high places one often gets wet through, and most visitors only Jiavo a very limited choice of apparel, so a good place to dry clothes at is desirable. As to the virtue of theso springs, I should sooner spend a week, with all the discomforts attached to the place, and bathe in the crudebasins fashioned by nature, than have 12 months at Rotorua/ with all tlieir palatial bathhouses thrown in.—l am, etc., r , , , D. J. REARDON. Eketahima.