THE ASCENT OF THE AROHA.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3797, 28 February 1881, Page 2

THE ASCENT OF THE AROHA.

The view from the summit of the Aroha on a clear day is unsurpassed in this colony, and we question very much if there are many spots in the world from which a more magnificent prospect is obtainable. On reaching the trig station, the firtit tiling that strikes the visitor is the apparent annihilation of distance,

from the extended range of vision. , There he stands, with mountain ranges like phalanxes of soldiers at his feet—ocean, river and plain filling up the vacancies in the picture. To the eastward, the great Pacific lies slumbering in the sunlight, and bearing on its placid bosom several islands. Small glimpses of the coastline are obtainable, and nearer at hand succes sive mountain ranges, of which the Aroha is the principal buttress, point their timbered summits skyward. Immediately below ran the Wairongomai creek, the rugged grandeur of whose wooden glen will doubtless be the theme for painters and poets yet to be. Away to the north is the southern continuation of the Coromandel range, and the magnificent stretch of country watered by the Thames and Piako rivers, which lie like gigantic silver Berpents in their verdant ferny beds. Beyond again the iFirfch of Thames, like some great inland lake, forms a fitting back ground. The visitor's eye almost sated with the superb variety, turns to the west and wanders over the fertile meadows of the Piako and Waikato Counties, the snow capped Egtnont fully 320 miles away being just visible in the southern corner of the picture. Tongariro, Pironga, and Maungatautari rear their peaks in solitary splendour, standing out like sentinels of the plains. Weli does the view repay tbe arduous labor of the ascent, and we have no doubt that some day it will become a favorite pilgrimage for students of nature. —Miner.