MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1940, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

TO WAIRAKEI, (Recorded by J.U.S. for the “Times-Age.") Volumes of pure white steam arising from dirty bubbling mud pools guided or rather guarded us against danger spots which may swallow horse and man in the treacherous approach to these places. Leaving Rotorua at dawn the Pari Karangi (the shining cliff) rose above the hills, then the wide open valleys of pumice ending at Horohoro (the swallower) a vast precipice 2400 feet above sea level. The top a wide level plain fringed with great trees. At the end was a gigantic upright pillar of stone named I-lincrnon’s Rock. At the Maori Pa Orakei Korako coloured rocks were seen tinted by chemical eruptions of past ages. Here the great, swift, winding Waikato (flowing river) looking like a polished mirror, reflected the forest on its banks and showed shoals of minnows well below the surface. Just beside the river near the village the giant geyser without warning ejected a vast column of water about fifty feet in the air and fell in a spray of hot steam.

Here Pohaturoa <the long rock) rises abruptly above the river 400 feet. On its summit, so difficult of access, the Arawa tribal pa kept watch and ward over the plains for many miles. From the level pumice plain its great walls stood erect, the rounded top and the thousands of stones scattered around the base with strange regular lines would seem to suggest a volcanic origin.