Six Lakes Trip

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 340, 29 September 1932, Page 8

Six Lakes Trip

The Six Lakes trip is in tlie naturc of a luxury trip — Tikitere excepted Leaving Rotorua, the road follows the eastern shore of Rotorua Lake and commands fine iews of the lake and Mokoia Island. The country to the right marks the scene of early iuttive .missiohary enterprise, and liere the first Englisli missionaries were successful in planting hedgerows and wooded areas in true English landscape style. The route is in part typically English and mergea iilto the weirdest and most dangerous locality in the wliole of the thermal regions, for nowhere else in the World is there such an intense concentration of heat as found at Tikitere. The hardest rock is reduced to a violently agitated molten mass, Impregnated with acids, and casting pff a variety of noxious fumes. No effort is required to picture the inferno that lies not far beneath the surface, and that finds escape in the form of blinding steam, issuing through treacherous, scething depths of mud. At Tikitere a guide is compulsory; the tourist , is escorted through the labyrinth bearing such names as Hell's .Gate, the Devil's Rorridge Pot, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. Without a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. fassing Tikitere, Lake' Rotoiti comes within view. The mar.y wooded indentations of this favourite lake, the background of bush, sheer cliffs, 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 Hongl's Track, along which the formidable warrior frequently passed and where still flourish the Sacred and the Ilangman's Tree; the haunts of spirits whose goodwill and protection are sought to this day by Maoris passing along the trade, and propitiatory offerings in the shape of wreaths and green leaves are still placed 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 curativo value. Here the naturalist is in his element; the lakes and the dense bush surrounding them serve as a sanctuarv for birds that

elsewhere are becoming rare. The tittern is freuently to be seen and the note of the kiwi heard. The road branching ofif to Lake Olcataina leads for nearly five miles through magnificent native bush. Here the glories of New Zea'.and's primeval forest and clustered fern, the liabitat of the bell bird, the tui, and others whose notes attain extraordinery purity, are seen to perfection, and in an environment that for centuries has remained unchanged. Okataina ' Lake has played a classical part in 1 the life of the early natives. Hidden j among superb bush-covered hills, canoes moved freely across its waters 1 to mysterious pahs an'd secret burial places long before the appearance of the wliite man; and traces of bygone history in the form of derelict pahs and burial places are still to , be seen. Lake Rotokawau fills the erater of a volcano that became extinct ages ago. The lake has inaccessible, precipitous sides and lies , like a gem in an amphitheatre of j bush. Fish, knowing no fear of the enemy, swarm in its quiet, unfathomable waters. lu .. ,^m> Aifa 'S^S8SS8SS