SIX LAKES TRIP

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 700, 28 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 shore 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 | 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 i to a violently agitated molten mass, 1 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'g Por- ; ridge Pot, Sodom and Gommorrah, j the Devil's Rocking Chair, etc. Without a guide, Tikitere is dangerous. Passing Tikitere, Lake Rotoiti comes I wtthin view. The mjnsy wooded ini dentations of this favourite lake, the ! background of bush, sheer cliffs, se- ! questered bays and inlets, delightful I beaches, form a superb picture of I natural beauty. Leaving Rotoiti, the 1 I car enters the famous Hongi's Track, ■ 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 i which every element of beauty enters; and by the roadside between the lakes, the wonderful soda, magnesia, j 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 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 tKe appearance of the white man. Lake Rotokawa fills i a volcano crater that became extinct' ages ago. The lake has inaocessible, precipitous sides and lies like a gem in an amphitheatre of bush. .