THE CALL OF THE SURF SIREN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 408, 17 December 1932, Page 14

THE CALL OF THE SURF SIREN

SUN AND "WHITE SAND ON OPOTIKI BEACHES. Six lines of foaming surf; mile npon mile of dazzling white sand; fring'e of ruby-tipped pohutukawas lining the motor road; blue skies and bluer eyes; and tlie summer sun over all. That is Opotiki beach dressed in its 1 Christmas garb calling for holidaymaking in the days that are close upon us. Truly, Opotiki is well served hy its beaches, for both north and south the long, sweeping Pacific rollers crash in with the leasterly swell, dashing into spray wbich scintillates in the sun and throws itself a spent force in fringes of millc-white foam upon those glittering sands. North of Opotiki runs the beach to Waiotahi River and all along the beach road there are picnic spots g-alore right beneath the crumbling trenches of ancient Maori pas where the shelter of the gnarled pohutukawa throws a generous shade from the blistering heat of the sun which pinlcs () the bather's/ back and' incidentally j dries the bread on the sandwiches. The Yellow Lupins Opotiki is p'articularly fortunate in its acre upon aere of lupins fringing the seaboard and though the golden bloom of early summer has gone, yet the faint elusive scent still lingei'ij 011 the sea breeze and in the cool of the evening has a charm which seems impossible to he caught in the essences of the perfumier. Lupin was planted in the district to comhat the drift of sand bome hy the easterly winds aeross to the rich valleys of farming lands, but it has becoine more than a merely utilitarian plant. Lupin has become in a sense the symbolical flower of Opotiki. Yellow for the butter from which the district draws so much of its wealth, greer\ for the lush pastures which bring that butter into being, and the leathery brown of j the stems which stands for the timber ; which was oue of the original sources 1 of wealth. But the scent is something distinctive; something old-world reealling the early days of settlement when, before the savage Hauhaus left a trail of destruction and hlood across the district, Opotiki was a graeious place of sedate prosperous missionaiy enterprise. It is said that it was the early niissionaries who first planted the lupin in the district and in this if it h'o true Opotiki is fortunate, for in other districts it was the missionary who planted the golden gorse and the homely sweethriar, both later to heci.3110 a curse instead of a hlessing. Moumtain. Streams Opotiki ha,? many. beauty spots and s(.uthward the road skirts the Pacific wlth divergencies into the valleys and all of these are worth following up. Up the little mountain streams there ave hundrt'ds of slieltered cosy fernembowered nooks wtih purling freshwater brook^ at their sides and bosky dells where one is almost .compelled to linger. Somehow food, be it over ,-o plain, tastes more interesting and more savoury when eaten in the open a>. . The picnic basket becomes a min1 of gastronomical treasures and ti o homely hlackened billy a fount of 11 ctar. And what appetites a ramble tlu'ough tho busli engendor-! What thii'sts lie hehind ihe dip in the break0 s where more than the usual allowance of half a pint per bathe is swallowed. Well, what of it? Christmas is coming and the lure of the breakers ce.lls from ofiice stool and desk, from I'-ctory, cowshed or shop counter. Opotiki has every opportunity for the picnicker and the holiday-maker and its manifold charms are waiting to he exploited by the tourist as well as the resident. The opou road is still open and the tides will still rise and fall "Opotiki Calling."