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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5517, 4 May 1889, Page 2

paTt cv « t£Mile Island lake country h I SS superior to anything to be found in our own Hot Lake district In the south taw-lling is easy, as there are greater raUWay facilities, the roads are better, and the hotels in out-of-the-way places_ are exLmely comfortable. HenCe ti* Middle

Island lake eoenery is always attractive to the Australianeummertouriet, who likes to take his easily; and who dreads coach, jolting and; Kraghing. There is nothing in the.nature of the country to .prevent the North Island tour being made equally pleasurable, and it is the more necessary that it should be made so for the reason that it has to be taken by invalids seeking the curative properties of the thermal springs. It should be the objeot of the Government to open up this route, in which the utmost assistance would be given by -local public bodies and by private individuals. The Hawke's Bay County Council has already, made a very generous offer to Government in the matter of maintaining' the road," if a subsidy be granted to completo it to Te Haroto via the Pukititiri bush. This new route would do away with the worst portions of the road now leading to Taupo, and with the inoreaeed traffic that .would be created, good hotel aecom'nodation would follow. In these remarks ;we are noj finding fault with the accommodation already to be met with, for it is as good as can be expected from the amount of custom, but no one will say that it is attractive. An aliernativo route to the Hot Lakes is to be found via Wairoa, Waikaremoana, and its lovely lake and alpine soenery, Fort Galatea and Rotorua. Years ago that route was surveyed, but nothing haa boen done further, although it would be of great advantage to stock drivers, and from a military point of view of great strategic value. But the road from Napier to Wairoa is just as far advanced as it was twenty veara ago, and the deep blue depths of Waikaremoana, with their wooded mountain fringe, lie almost unknown and in solitude.