“AEROPLANE VIEW”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 300, 4 December 1929, Page 9

“AEROPLANE VIEW”

THE TAUPO VALLEY. AN IMPRESSIVE PICTURE. Down Rotorua way thele is much talk about the future of the new forest drive that will be opened up when the Rotorua-Waikaremoana road is completed (says the Auckland “Star”). For years it stopped at Ruatahuna, in the heart of the Urewera; from there to Lake Waikaremoana there was a track with many gaps, but to-day the highway ig an almost accomplished fact. When the 16 miles round the head of that grand lake is in order—the road was first formed when the Tourist Department was first started, years ago—one will be able to drive from Rotorua to Napier, right round two sides of Waikaremoana. From Ruataniwha to the lake, the new road crosses the Huirau Range, a vast extent °f virgin forest, sweeping away from the eye in all directions, with not a sign of civilisation to be seen. The route from Rotorua is via Waiotapu, where one rises to the Kaingaroa Plains, past Murupara through the Te Whaiti Gorge, and so to Ruatahuna. Just after rising to the top of the Kaingaroa Plateau—for that is what the plains amount to —one has a glorious view over the Taupo Valley. In the foreground are the hills afforested with pines and larch, and through thig “V” the eye plunges down the whole extent of the valley, Reporoa making a spot of green in the brown of the rest of the landscape, and then away in the south lies Lake Taupo, backed by the snowy mountains. Ruapehu, Tongariro and smoking Ngauruhoe. It has been called “Aeronlane View,” and certainly it is one of the most impressive in that part of the island.