SIX LAKES TRIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 673, 27 October 1933, Page 8

SIX LAKES TRIP

The Six Lakes trip is in the nature of a luxury trip — Tikitere excepted. Leaving Rotorua, the road follows • the eastern shore of Rotorua Lake ! and commands fine views of the lake j and Mokoia Island. The country to i the right marks the scene of early I native missionary enterprise, and | here the first English missionaries were successful in planting hedgerows and wooded areas. Nowhere else in the world is there such an intense concentration of heat as found at Ti- | kitere. The hardest rock is reduced ; to a violently agitated molten mass, I impregnated with acids, and casting I off a variety of noxious fumes. j j The tourist is escorted through | the labyrinth bearing. such names ! as Hell's Gate, the Devil's Por- 5 j ridge Pot, Sodom and Gommorrah, j the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. Without . a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. ] Passing Tikitere, Lake Rotoiti comes l witliin view. The mar.y wooded indentations of this favourite lake, the i | background of bush, sheer cliffs, sequestered bays and inlets, delightful | beaches, form a superb picture of l natural beauty. Leaving Rotoiti, the | car enters the famous Hongi's Track, along which the formidable warrior i frequentlv passed and where still j flourish the Sacred and the Hang- r; man's Tree. Lakes Rotoehu and « Rotoma embrace scenery into | which every element of beauty enters ; and by the roadside between the | lakes, the wonderful soda, magnesia, i and iron spring is visited. The road branching off to Lake Okataina J leads for nearly five miles through : magnificent native bush. Okataina \ Lake has played a classical part in ' the life of the early natives. Hidden among superb bush-covered hills, j canoes moved freely across its waters i to mysterious pahs and secret burial places long before the appearance ' of the white man. Lake Rotokawa fills a volcano crater that became ex- ; tinct ages ago. The lake has inaocessible, precipitous sides and lies ^ like a gem in an amphitheatre of j bush. J