“NATURE’S CURE”

Southland Times, Issue 21831, 7 October 1932, Page 8

“NATURE’S CURE”

WONDERFUL ASSET AT ROTORUA. “I don’t think that you New Zealanders know a fraction of the value of some of your natural assets,” remarked a distinguished visitor a few years ago. “Take Rotorua, for example. Apart from the geysers, cauldrons and other thermal marvels, Rotorua is a magician as a health-giver with its wonderful waters. If Rotorua were in Europe or North America it would attract more health-seekers than all other Spas put together.” Similar tributes have been paid by other tourists from many countries. t Unquestionably Geyserland can do good to the body as well as to the soul. Long ago the native found healing in the wonderful waters of Rotorua. A Maori legend mentions that when the moon dies each month she goes to the great Lake of Aewa, where she ba'thes in the Wai-ora-a-Tane (“The Living Waters of Mankind”), and comes forth with life and strength renewed, to travel again her accustomed way through the heavens. “This is the water which can restore all, even the moon to its path in the sky,” the native legend runs. The State Spa at Rotorua has all manner of mineral water baths, with vapour variations, electric thrills, massage, and other treatment by experts. The beautiful grounds include bowling greens and tennis courts. Golf links are also conveniently near, and the world’s best angling waters are close by. - Men and women who are weary and jaded, although, perhaps, not troubled by rheumatism and other ills for which Rotorua offers a cure, can find relief and refreshment in and about that peaceful town. The waters will be helpful tonic, and the visitors have a choice of many pleasant scenes for delightful outings.

As the progressive cosy town of Rotorua is linked by rail with Auckland and Wellington—easy journeys—the springs and geysers in that locality are the best known, but the whole region is notable for its many remarkable spectacles, some of which rather belong to a fairyland than to an inferno. Indeed the contrasts are so striking that they suggest “Paradise Regained” as well as “Paradise Lost.”

Nature’s wild play with bubbling mud and hissing water may give an impression to an unscientific stranger that New Zealand is distinctly a country in the making and that the settled parts have not long cooled down; but it is a geological fact that New Zealand is one of the world’s oldest countries, and is actually the remnant of a huge continent. The thermal wonderland is one of Nature’s eccentricities.