,, 02 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



and general aspect enthusiastic Scotsmen claim to see in miniature some of the charac- 

 teristic features of Loch Katrine. 



Before pushing on from Ohinemutu to Taupo, one with an eye for the picturesque 

 will be tempted to traverse the forty-two miles of country which separates him from the 

 sra-port of Tauranga. He will have the choice of two routes, of which the shorter, 

 rougher, and more romantic, is that by way of the Oropi or Eighteen-mile Bush. For 

 miles the road passes over hills and down dales, through passes and along precipitous 

 gulches, and on under the outstretched arms of giant trees, whose trunks are hung with 

 masses of swaying vines dangling like swinging halters from the rugged trunks. Ferns 

 of infinite variety and artistic design please the eye with their green lace-like fronds, 

 while through the forest the long-stemmed fern-trees lift their graceful rods and spread 

 their round branchy tops of fluttering foliage like palm-trees in the tropics. In the midst 

 of the bush,' the coach follows a narrow winding road chiselled out of the face of a 

 precipitous cliff, and on gaining its crest one may look back upon the Maungarewa 

 Gorge, once a superb vista of craggy rocks overhung and embowered with the choicest 

 foliage, and with the narrow stream at its foot spanned by a rustic bridge. But the 

 glory has departed. The spoiler has been here, and has transformed this beauteous spot 

 into a blackened and howling waste. 



On emerging from the bush, the road gradually descends until it passes by the 

 " Gate Pah," the scene of a memorable action, and thence winds its way through hills 

 of fern for three miles until the town of Tauranga is reached, covering a small peninsula 

 within the bosom of a land-locked harbour of the Bay of Plenty ; and its principal street, 

 " The Strand," skirts its stretch of beach. Outside the peninsula, a long narrow tongue of 

 land curves round to the Bay, and terminates immediately in front of the town in a 

 conical rock, eight hundred and sixty feet high, called Maunganui. 



From Ohinemutu there is yet another very pleasant excursion to be made to the 

 wonderful Wai-o-tapu Valley, which has only recently been opened up to the tourist. It 

 is a twenty-mile journey, and lies between the Paeroa Range on the east and the ample 

 expanse of the Kaingaroa Plain on the west, stretching from Lake Ngahewa to Ohako. 

 Two lofty mountains Maungaongaonga and Maungakakaramea guard the northern 

 entrance to the Valley, while all around this entrance steam-jets burst forth from 

 numerous fumaroles, and an immense seething chauldron boils, hisses and groans with the 

 noise of a steam-hammer. Maungakakaramea itself is wreathed from base to summit 

 with steam, and its steep slopes are deeply fissured. From the top of Maungaongaonga 

 a magnificent prospect is obtained of the extensive plain with its thirty-four lakes, and 

 as far south as Lake Taupo, with the snow-clad peaks of Tongariro and Ruapehu 

 clearly defined against the sky. "The Pink Chauldron" is the chief attraction of the 

 Wai-o-tapu Valley. It is a deep depression on the south-eastern side of Maungaongaonga, 

 coated with silicates of many hues, but with a predominance of pink. A spring of 

 boiling water occupies one corner of the basin ; and, on the upper side, three geysers 

 rise one above the ^ther, forming a terrace, which, it is hoped, will reproduce in the 

 course of time many if not all of the marvellous beauties of those which have disap- 

 peared from Rotomahana. The clear blue water tlows over lovely incrustations of white 

 and pink silica, the slope being covered with thousands of tiny cup-like depressions. A 



