SIX LAKES TRIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 695, 22 November 1933, Page 8

SIX LAKES TRIP

| c* I The Six Lakes trip is in the nature ! of a luxury trip — Tikitere excepted. i Leaving Rotorua, the road follows ' the eastern thore of Rotorua Lake and commands fine views of the lake and Mokoia Island. The country to ; the right marka the scene of early ' native missionary enterprise, and ; here the first English missionanes ! were successful in planting hedgei rows and wooded areas. Nowhere else j 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" [ off a variety of noxious fumes. The tourist is escorted through the labyrinth bearing such names as Hell's Gate, the Devil's Porridge Pot, Sodom and Gommorrah, 1 the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. Without a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. ! Passing Tikitere, Lake Rotoiti comes i within view. The maEj wooded indentations of this favourite lake, the • background of bush, sheer cliffs, sequestered bays and inlets, delightful beaches, form a superb picture of i natural beauty. Leaving Rotoiti, the I -car enters the f amous Hongi's Track, j ! along which the formidable warrior J : frequently passed and where still | ; flourish the Sacred and the Hang- ! ' man's Tree. Lakes Rotoehu and j Rotoma embrace scenery into j i which every element of beauty en- i ters; and by the roadside between the lakes, the wonderful soda, magnesia, and iron spring is visited. The road branching off to Lake Okataina leads for nearly five miles through magnificent native bush. Okataina Lake has played a classical part in I the life of the early natives. Hidden among superb bush-covered hills, 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 inaccessible, precipitous sides and lies like a gem in an amphitheatre of bush.