SIX LAKES TRIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 699, 27 November 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 1 the eastern ahore of Rotorua Lake ' and commands fine views of the lake and Mokoia Island. The country to ! the right marks the scene of early ; native missionary enterprise, and j here the first English missionaries J were successful in planting hedgej rows and wooded areas. Nowhere else ; in the world is there such an intense i concentration of heat as found at Tikitere. The hardest rock is reduced | to a violently agitated molten mass, j 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 Por- ; ridge Pot, Sodom and Gommorrah, the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. Without a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. Passing Tikitere, Lak® Rotoiti comes j within view. The many wooded ini dentations of this favourite lake, the background of bush, sheer cliffs, se- ! questered bays and inlets, delightful ' beaches, form a superb picture of , natural beauty. Leaving Rotoiti, the j car enters the famous Hongi's Track, along which the formidable warrior i frequently passed and where atill • flourish the Sacred and the Hang- j 1 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, magneaia, and iron spring is visited. Tha 1 road branching off to Lake Okataina leads for nearly five miles through magnificent native bush. Okataina i Lake has played a classical part in 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 ex- ; tinct ages ago. The lake has inaccessible, precipitous sides and lies ! like a gem in an amphitheatre of bush.