Across Range and Plain.

But we must get along, for the Royal itinerary demands arrival at Rotorua by the evening of December 21. This means a long motoring day, making Opotiki by lunch-time. On this run the Duke of Gloucester will have his first taste of the real New Zealand wilds, for the road penetrates a rough tract of country on the watershed between the East Coast side and the Bay of Plenty coast. A partly subdued country; dairy farms and sheep runs giving place to forest ranges, vistas of green and blue wooded ranges and deep valleys and gulches with rapid-whitened rivers tearing along below, and the skilfully-engineered road cork-screwing through until the hills suddenly fall away and the green levels of the Opotiki farm country open out. The fringe of the Urewera country is touched at the head of the valley, where the Waioeka River issues from the old-time haunts of Te Kooti and his warriors. Opotiki is a place of story. The Royal party should have time here to look in at the historic church of the Rev. Carl Volkner, and to hear on the spot the story of the missionary who was done to death by Kereopa and his fanatics in 1865.