"CLEAN UP 'WHAKA.'"

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 11

"CLEAN UP 'WHAKA.'"

ENGLISH VISITOR'S ADVICE. "MOST DEPRESSING PLACE." "I can scarcely tell you how disappointed I was with Rotorua,' said a recent visitor, an Englishman who has been a resident of New Zealand for five or six years. "I went expecting to be thrilled with the effects of freakish nature in all its glory—but it was a case of 'that will cost you two shillings; that three shillings'—until I realised that Rotorua was as far away from nature as Piccadilly. You are invited to be stung everywhere you go, from the youngsters who wade in for thrown pennies at the bridge at Wliaka, until the Maori guide says with ghastly pleasantry, 'Now I'm going to rob you!' What on earth is the Government thinking about ? Rotorua is a national asset—or should be. I call it a rookery. "Whaka is the most depressing place imaginable, with its collection of decayed cottages, all innocent of paint, its. rubbish heaps, and steamy refuse holes, and its rotting model pa. How can we invite people to come thousands of miles to see such depressing sights? It would be much more dignified if the Government were to employ guides on a weekly salary than to have thQse women imposing on strangers, but first and before all the Government should clean np Whaka and its environs."