a3 
Whangarei to Kawakawa, Ohaeawai, 
Kaeo, and Kaitaia. 
We now felt that we had fairly embarked 
on oux northward journey, and became in- 
terested in the various townships and sid- 
ings at which the train stopped—some of 
their names familiar to us, far away though 
they be from my southern home. The first 
stoppage was at Hikurangi, where are 
situated the well-known coal mines. The 
township is 10 miles from Whangarei, and 
the time occupied in reaching it was three- 
quarters of an hour. Slow traveling! Ten 
or 15 minutes afterwards we stopped for 
au minute or two at a siding where is 
situated, close to the railway line, an extra- 
ordinary deposit of pure limestone. This 
is the property of Wilson’s Portland Cement 
Company, and the stone is quarried for use 
at the company’s great works in Whangarei 
Harbour. Ht is reduced to powder and 
intermixed with the rock procured from 
the company’s enormous deposit near its 
works, addine to the richness of the cement 
product. Huge blocks of the stone at 
Hikurangi stand up in great pinnacles 
whose picturesque boldness is most striking. 
Ten minutes afterwards the little station of 
Whatapara was passed. We had been told 
that from this township onwards the roads 
were very bad and this information had 
induced my son to put his car on a truck 
and decide to commence our motor tour 
after reaching Kawakawa. 
The train continued its course through 
a pleasant dairying country, with voleainic 
bush-clad cones at intervals in the distance, 
dairy farms succeeding each other, with 
cows within railed enclosures waiting to be 
milked. We stopped at the little station of 
Hukerenui for a few minutes, with two 
magnificent clumps of pampas grass just 
opposite, and, resuming our journey, passed 
a dairy farm, with more cows in an enclos- 
ure waiting to be milked, and on and on 
past more dairy farms, more waiting cows, 
through manuka, and flax country, with slug- 
vish streams and poor-looking hills on either 
side. This is a stretch of poor country, 
numerous cabbage-trees with attenuated! 
stems standing up in the fast-waning light, 
