SIX LAKES TRIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 682, 7 November 1933, Page 8

SIX LAKES TRIP

The Six Lakes trip is in the nature I of a luxury trip — Tikitere excepted. £ i Leaving Rotorua, the road follows > the eastern ahore of Rotorua Lake and commands fine views of the lake j and Mokoia Island. The country to jj ; the right marks the scene of early sj native missionary enterprise, and I here the first English missionanes | were successful in planting hedge- | rows and wooded areas. 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 k off a variety of noxious fumes. ^ The tourist is escorted through the labyrinth bearing such names as Hell's Gate, the Devil's Por- | ridge Pot, Sodom and Gommorrah, S the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. With- \ out a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. $ Passing Tikitere, Laka Rotoiti comes within vievr. The many wooded in- | dentations of this favourite lake, the | background of bush, sheer cliffs, se- | questered baya' and inlets, delightful | beaches, form a superb picture of natural beauty. Leaving Rotoiti, the | car enters the famous Hongi's Track, | along which the formidable warrlor c? frequently passed and where still | flourish the Sacred and the Hang- 1 | man's Tree. Lakes Rotoehu and . | Rotoma embrace scenery into j l which every element of beauty en- ! ters; and by the roadside between the lakes, the wonderful soda, magnesia, and iron spring is visited. Th» , road branching off to Lake Okataina ^ leads for nearly five miles through I 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 : to mysterious pahs and secret burial places long before the appearance ■ of the white man. Lake Rotokawa fills > a volcano crater that became extinct ages ago. The lake has inac- l cessible. precipitous sides and lies like a gem in an amphitheatre of u bush. |