THE MOKAI FORESTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13766, 3 June 1908, Page 8

THE MOKAI FORESTS.

FIGHTING THE FLAMES. NEW THERMAL WONDERS. '"; A SPORTING RECIONv !>Y OCR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.] ; : Mok.iV is' not mentioned in New Zealand geographies. It is not marked on ordinary maps, and there is scarcely a schoolmaster in the country who can say where it is, or ' what it is. Yet, it is quite a, flourishing ; township, containing a. population of three j or four* hundred prosperous people, and is i more up-to-date in some municipal matters j : than many far older and far larger towns. It owes its existence entirely to the Taupo ; Totara Timber Company. All its male in- : habitants are in some way or other connect- | ed with the milling industry. Its houses are company houses, and though there is a Maori quarter, even the Maoris are depen- ; dent either on "timber working or on royal- | tie.-; from timber lands. The township is set in a shallow valley surrounded, or apparently surrounded, by low!.bracken and scrub-covered bills-. lu the centre of it is the great mill capable of , cutting 15,000,000 ft in the ytar. At the {north end are the single men's cottages, in ; long lines. At the south .end are the mar- ! ried men's dwellings, edging- the recreation j ground. As in all timber towns there i* an ! entire absence of paint. Why this should 'be has always been a puzzle to me. Per- ; siiapsi timber men-feel that their occupation is transitory. 'Perhaps they have a rooted . objection to preserving what they are so . strenuously- occupied in destroying. Mokai is not. picturesque, few milling | towns are, but its human element is inter- !-, eating. Timber men come into closer eon- ■ tpSil with primeval forces than most workers, and they must of necessity be shong and daring and resourceful. Floods and landslips and Sre have to b; met and fought, creek and gorge and hill slopes mastered. When the veal New Zealand novelj ist is bom he will go to the timber camps j for romance in real life, for action and excitement, and adventure TOT ABA FORESTS. The Mokai forest covers a large area of country on.the tableland which fringes thenorthern shores of Lake Taupo. The company, as it is familiarly calk-el, have the rights over 12.000 acres, estimated to contain . 500,000,000 ft of timber. There are portions of this forest estimated to carry 100.000 ft per acre, a marvellous yield considering that- kauri bush is considered pretty good if it cuts .an average of 25,000 it per acre. The higher yield is, of course, exceptional, and is only teund where the totara grows in clumps; still it is a magnificent forest, and: the company has work ahead for many years. MODERN BUSH WORKING. ~ I walked into the bush with Mr. R. H. Phelan, the company's manager, and saw something of the method of handling timber on modern lines. The old bullock teams and logging roads are no more. A powerful winding engine called a " Hauler," is fixed in. position .near the train line, and from it go long lines of wire cable. When fa?' tree is felled iti» cut into logs of varying lengths. The grips at the end of the steel cable are attached to. a log, a signal .is given, the drums of the hauler revolve /and the log comes sliding through, the .bush with the power. of a hundred horses in ■ front of it. Even the- popular loading skids are discarded. The logs are drawn up alongside the tramway, and as the trucks come up special hoisting tackle worked from the hauler lifts the logs and drops them on to The trucks as if they were bits of firewood.

.<>«:- FOREST FIRES. It was in discussing this hauler tli.it .1 > learnt incidentally of the exciting adventures which were, experienced here during the summer fire;;. We all remember how, during the heat of February, the whole land was covered with smoke from burning forests, and I know that when I was at Itetorua news came of the Mokai township being in danger of 'destruction. No fine seems to have told the story of those terrible days; no one save the men and the women in the bush districts seem to have realised what bush fires meant. Well, Mr. Phelan, talking quite casually, gave me some idea. The fire started somewhere. It spread round the big bush camp: men fought it night and day. They buried their movable gear, and beat the flames off the big cook-house and sleeping quarters. The air was full of smoke and driving sparks, and the flames roared and crackled from the dense undergrowth to the tree-tops, a bun- ; dred feet overhead, j One can imagine what- such conditions ' would mean to the man in charge c- so 1 much valuable property. Word came down J that the lire was creeping across to the ! tramway, and cutting off the expensive ! hauler, a locomotive, and other machinery. | Mr. Phelan wont up with a fe'i-ng of.men. i Bushmen don't hang buck wheat there is t danger to face, and their work beg;:;!. To j shift some scores of tons of kesvy muc.hini try at any time is no easv task. To shift

I it when the whole world .Si-ems aflame, is :■-, i fent for heroes. It would require: a Kipling i to tell how it was done. The very sleepers. j of the train line were charring; the wooden rails blazing' in places. Yet huge machine? Intel to bo moved along tin., tramway. .At any moment the men might be entirely surrounded by flams:-;, when they, as well .•in the machinery, would be destroyed. Who could tell where to r;tn when the. flames seemed everywhere? At one time it seemed as if all escape wen- cut oft', and men plunged through t!w smoke, only in find themselves on the edge of burning gullies or fenced by fallen lice'. There was danger to life in the work; a horrible danger, mid yet the men faced it. The odds were as great as in battle, and these men, without, the thought of glory or reward, took them, cheerfully. They got the hauler .and the locomotive into a deep cutting where they were comparatively safe, and then went oil to light the flames oil' the township. Their clothes were, burnt to finder in places, their hair singed, their skin, scorched, and yet they worked like Trojans. I saw where the flames had wept to within a few yards of the larger houses in Mokai. 1 know* that for days and for weeks there was danger and tribulation, but I do not know that any particular notice was token of it. No one asked for help from outside ; no one seemed to think that it was anything to make ;»• fuss about ; hut I know that men have won world-wide admiration for no greater bravery than was shown during the tires at Mokai.' OHINE-ARIKI. The thermal wonders of Auckland are interminable. Hot springs were pointed out to mo alongside the Taupe Totara Timber Company's line, between the Waikato River and .Mokai, and on Sunday Mr. French piloted me to a new Whakarewarewa about three miles from the township. There is no road to the place, and it ha* not even a name in the New Zealand guide books, yet it is wonderful enough to make a national sanatorium. We wandered through undulating tussock and scrub country, sometimes following a wild horse track, sometimes making a, beeline, and came, into a broad irregular valley through which the Waipapa Creek winds its wav. On file opposite side of the valley rises Pukemoremore, a curious- pyramidshaped h\'t. and apparently in a line with the axis of this hill lies an extensive group of hot pools, boiling' springs, and some of the finest mud baths in New Zealand. You come on them in depressions among the stunted scrub. Home ol the mud craters are fullv 30ft across, and one boiling pool is large enough to be called a miniature h ke. On another tarn of grey mud lies a thick black brown scum resembling crude petroleum. All the mud springs seem, oily and impregnated with sulphur. The wonder of all tilt- sights, however, is a great semigeyser called Tuhuatahi-te-Wai-AnKi. 1 got the name from a Maori wahine later, but she could not give mc its meaning. WaiAriki is quite a long enough title, m . it need not depend on a name. It is a white pool, some yards in diameter, encircled by white cliffs.

Through the pool issues a great column o! steam, making a ferocious noise, churning: '..white liquid in ceaseless agitation, and tossing it, up yards high in somo : of its spurts. I do not know any other spring that is so: savage in its energy; " Then' .is force enough evidently to make a. second Wahnangu.geyser. And this force is going to waste. AN these score? of mud craters which might possess marvellous curative properties: all these hot pools which might bo veritable Bethesdas, are nnutfli.-ed. This wonderful valley, 1700 f- above sea level, with its clear crisp air and its strange surrounding*, is admirably adapted'., for a health resort. It. is easy of access, capable of vast improvement, and may yet become .1 centre of attraction. The vast extent of country round it may I** iinsuited for agricultural or pastoral purposes, but there is no reason why it should not 1* turned into a great hunting park. It has innumerable fine streams already well stocked with trout, the WaihuhaTaiKl Wailiora running into Lake Taupo. The Hurnhurnaku and Kakaiso, the Mangakino, Waipapa. and Ongarahne tributaries of the Waikato, aro ! fine fishing streams where the rainbow flourishes undisturbed. Land game is not plentiful, but I do not see why all this high I country should not be stocked with deer and game."birds. It has little other use, and acclimatisation can be made to go hand-in-hand with forestation. This great tableland which occupies the heart of the North Island, need not be considered from the utilitarian point of view. It is specially designed by Nature for health and recreation purposes, and should be looked upon and provided for as the great holiday ground of the Southern Hemisphere.