TOURISTS SURPRISED.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 95, 22 April 1924, Page 7

TOURISTS SURPRISED.

THREE THOUSAND AFFECTED. CONDITIONS IN ROTORUA. HARVEST FOR MOTOR VEHICLES. (»«y Telegraph.—Special to •'Star.") ■ ROTORUA, this day. About tliree thousand people are affected here by the stoppage of trains. Rotorua is unusually crowded this .Easter, hotels and boardinghouses being full to their capacity. Xot more than a hundred regarded the possibilities of !a strike seriously, and took the train yesterday. A very long train was dispatched at six o'clock last evening, but it was mainly filled by visitors to the local sports carnival. About three hundred people assembled at the station for a train expected to leave at six this morning-, only to find an indefinite cancellation of all services. By* nine o'clock, when the main express ordinarily ,leaves, the town was N placarded ■ with boards advertising motor trips to Auckland at £0. arid to • Tauranga (to which the ordinary fare is 25/) at £2. One cheery optimist, wi)tli a charabanc capable of seating fifteen for the short run to Whakarewarewa.. had his windscreen chalked "Auckland, £3." He hung persistently round the railway station, but found no takers, and in town the price, in the absence of any rush, had dropped to £5 by ten o'clock for comfortable touring cars. People will be put to considerable extra expense, but the route via Tauranga is open practically in any weather, and anyone who requires to do so can get away. One sign that conditions are -not ■ normal is a crowded telegraph office.