A NEW ZEALAND SANATORIUM

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1831, 10 April 1907, Page 32

A NEW ZEALAND SANATORIUM

When the railway is formally opened to Waioru, Wellingtonians will be brought within close touch of one of the healthiest of the world’s sanatoria, the high tussock country around the base of Ruapehu and the sister mountains. Trains are now running from Taihapo to Waioru, twenty-one miles, but they are run in connection with construction by the Public Works Department, and have not yet been taken over by the Railway Department. The Public" Works Department is. however, assisting traffic and couvenienclng visitors and residents by taking passengers on the ballast trains, and in a very short space of time the Railway Department will have taken over this section, and Wellington residents will be able to run through in one day to the plateau, ranging from 3000 to 4000 feet in elevation and of the character of the famous South African veldt, on which there is already accommodation for visitors and where health and strength are drunk in with every breath. What was described by one of tlie railway officials last week as “a serious attempt” to finish, the North Island Main Trunk railway is now being made, and when the line is a little further through it should be possible to arrange that the man who gets on the train at Wellington in the morning may complete his coach journey to the thermal marvels of Tokaanu on the same day. There is a daily coach at present and a largo traffic, but the road has been badly cut up by heavy flaxmill waggons, and needs much more attention than the two surfacemen to its forty-four miles of present length can give it. There is abundant pumice close to the road throughout and.this would make admirable “metal” if freely used.