Lakes Trip

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 315, 31 August 1932, Page 8

Lakes Trip

The Six Lalces trip is in the nature of a luxury trip — Tikitere excepted. Leaving Rotorua, the road follows the eastern shore of Rotorua Lalce and commands fine iews of the lake and Mokoia Island. The country to the right marks the scene of early native niissionary enterprise, and here the first English missionaries were succossful in planting hedgerdws and wooded areas in true English landscape style. The route is in part typically English and nierges into the weirdest and most dangerous locality in the whole of tho thermal regions, for nowhere else in the world is there such an intense concentration of lieat as found at Tikitere. Tho hardest rock is redueed to a violently agitated molten mass, impregnated with acids, and casting off a variety of noxioiis fumes. No effort is required to picture the inferno that lies not far beneath the surface, and that fmds escape in the form of blinding steam, issuing through treacherous, seething depths of mud. At Tikitere a guide is coxn-pulsoi-y; the tourist is escorted through the labyrinth bearing such names as Hell's Gate, the Devil's Porridge Pot, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Devil's Rocking Gliair, etc. Without a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. Passing Tikitere, Lake Rotoiti comes within view. The many wooded indentations of this favourite lake, the background of bush, sheer clifTs, sequestered bays and inlets, delightful beaches, form a superb picture of natural beauty. Its shores are dotted with ancient Maori settlements and said to contain specimens of native carvings, the most faultless of their kind. Leaving Rotoiti, the car enters the famous Ilongi's Traclc, along which the formidable warrior frequently passed and where still flourish the Sacred and the Hangman's Tree; the haunts of. spirits whose goodwill and protection are sought to this day by Maoris passing along the traclc, and propitiatory offerings in the shape of wreaths and green leaves are still placcd at the base of the trees. Lakes Rotoehu and Rotoma embrace scenery into which every element of beauty enters; and by the roadside between the lakes, the wonderful soda, magnesia, and iron spring is visited. The spring, sparkling and clear as crystal, is of unique curative value. Here the naturalist is in his element; the lakes and the dense bush surrounding them serve as a sanctuary for birds that elsewhere are beconring rare. The bittern is freuently to be seen and the note of the kiwi heard. The road branching off to Lake Okataina j leads for nearly five miles through magnificent native bush. Here the , glories of New Zea'.and's primeval j forest and clustered fern, the habitat of the bell bird, the tui, and others | whose notes attain extraordinsvy pur- i ity, are seen to perfection, and in an environment that for centuries has remained unchanged. Okataina Lake has played a classical part in the life of the early natives. Hidden among superb bush-eovered hills, canoes moved freely across its waters to mysterious pahs and secret burial places long before the appearance of the wliite man; and traces of bygone history in the form of deredct pahs and burial places are still to be seen. Lake Rotokawau fills the crater of a volcano that became extinct ages ago. The lake has inaccessible, precipitous sides and lies liko a gem in an amphitheatre of • bush. Fish, lcnowing no fear of the enemy, swarm in its quiet, unfatliomable waters.