First Impressions.

Waikato Times, Volume 120, Issue 20889, 22 August 1939, Page 14

First Impressions.

Fertile Waikato Valley.

Through Eyes of Pioneer.

A traveller by the name of Hochstetter in the year 1858, on reaching Taupiri, climbed to the top of the Taupiri Mountain, and after looking over the Waikato later described the country as follows: “Here I beheld for the first time an extensive lowland spreading into distant mountain cones and remote mountain chains. Like mirrors resplendent with the broken rays of the sun, you see glistening numerous lakes and the serpentine currents of large rivers winding through the plains. The Waikato is the main river in this richly watered, fertile basin, which in its extent from the western to the eastern mountain rnnges I call the Middle Waikato Basin. The Waikato flows through this basin in the direction of southeast to north-west, a distance of thirty-five miles. Immediately at the foot of the Taupiri the Mangawara joins it, running through large swamps in the east, and five miles further up it receives the Waipa, a principal tributary from the south-west. Up the Waipa towards the south-west and south, along the western coastal range, the lowland extends as far as the slopes of the picturesque trachytic mountain Pirongia, and the spurs of the Rangitoto Range, where from the midst of the plain Kakepuku rises with regular conical slope. To the south and south-west, where the Waikato enters from the southern tableland into the basin, there rises majestically the trachytic Maungatautari. Thence spring up a low range of hills, the Maungakawa range, separating the eastern portion of the basin—the plains of the Piako and Waihou. rivers of considerable size emptying into the Hauraki Gulf—from the Waikato and Waipa Plains. But it is only the steep margin of the eastern coast range, from the Patetere Plateau to the Aroha Mountain, that forms the eastern boundary of the basin. “This whole basin was, previous to the last elevation of the North Island, which was probably connected with the volcanic eruptions in the centre of the Island, a bay of the sea, extending from the Hauraki Gulf far into the interior. The steep margin of the surrounding ranges has continued to this day, displaying the seashore of old, and singular terrace formations on the declivities of the hills and river-banks within this basin is the result of slow and periodical upheaving.”