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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 2 (May 2, 1938.)

Orakei-Korako — “The Place of Adorning” — New Zealand's Newest Wonderland

page 32

Orakei-Korako
“The Place of Adorning”
New Zealand's Newest Wonderland

(Rly. Publicity photes.) Multicoloured Terraces across the Waikato River.

(Rly. Publicity photes.)
Multicoloured Terraces across the Waikato River.

In the morning of the world the gay gods of the Polynesian pantheon had a high old time. After mighty Tane had rent apart Rangi and Papa-the Sea and the Sky, and laughing Maui had fished New Zealand up from the sea, these care-free titans set about making a pocket world of the new land. They modelled huge mountain masses, gouged out deep ravines and valleys, filled lakes with clear water and laid out courses for rushing rivers, made glaciers and snowy caps for towering peaks and packed them all close together. But when it came to the thermal regions they gave their wildest fancies full play. They left the primal engines that forge a world in throbbing action. They left a litter of boiling springs, spouting geysers, smoking terraces, and the whole blazing profusion of Nature's fireworks. But one of them was an artist, dreaming of colour-the first of the Impressionists. He was satisfied with the crazy quilt of steam and fire and eeriness the others had worked and he was delighted with the sylvan beauty of lake and forest in which they had set their fantastic handiwork. Still, he wanted a more scintillating display. He wanted a prodigal show of hues and tints, a riot of rich colour, a chromatic orgy. In this mood, he took a rainbow, broke it into its thousand colour-gems, splashed them all over a steaming valley of the green Waikato River and the place became Orakei-Korako.

A Trace of weariness, of the boredom of riches often enters the minds of tourists and holidaymakers. There is the good story of the little miss who was having her first joy-cruise in a pretty harbour. Soon she said: “I think we'll go back now, Mr. Boatman, after all, when you've seen one wave, you've seen them all.” I can imagine this feeling overtaking folks who are “doing” the Rotorua thermal wonderland; but I can promise a speedy cure. A visit to Orakei-Korako is a specific for sight-seeing repletion.

The two main ingredients in the magic philter of Orakei-Korako are these: first, the riot of colour; second, the ever-present soft-green waters of the bordering Waikato River. In no similar area on the whole surface of the earth can there exist such a comprehensive range of all the hues known to the eye of man. It is this prodigal display of colour riches that distinguishes newly opened up Orakei-Korako from all other thermal show places.

I always think that in much of the official publicity about the Rotorua region, too much stress is laid on geyser and fumerole and not enough on the woodland beauty of lake, road and mountain. The journey to Orakei-Korako is a panorama with cinematographic qualities. We had continual trouble with my trusty friend of the camera. It was difficult to keep him in
The Tea House set in picturesque surroundings.

The Tea House set in picturesque surroundings.

the can every bend provided a new picture and he was in a state of suppressed plate-changing all day. The journey takes an hour and a half of easy driving on a perfect road, and the motor services are plentiful and regular. Not the least interesting of the scenic offer- page 33 ings is the big area at Horohoro where green fields, thick with cattle, and neat farm homesteads, have taken the place of scrub-covered downs. This is the land development scheme of the Native Lands Department. It is followed by the endless billowing miles of the exotic pine forests, here and there dotted with boards indicating the colossal figures of the acreages planted. Suddenly on the roadside looms in ogreish loneliness the famous Witch's Rock. Here the first acclimitisation expert of our primeval times, the chief, Hatupatu, took shelter from, the half-bird half-woman, Kuran-gaituku. The rock opened to receive him, and its surface still bears the marks of the furious claws of the pursuing harpy. We had taken a picture of the huge conical rock pile of Pahaturoa. This is shown from the Atiamuri Bridge where the roaring waters of the Wai-kato are compressed into a defile which could be jumped by the holder of any provincial broad jump championship. It is a huge rhyolite “plug” forced up by some gigantic upheaval in the dawn of time. It is interesting to note that the dun Glengarry cap it appears to wear is a plantation of nine acres of pines.
At the base of Aladdin's Cave.

At the base of Aladdin's Cave.

However, at the turn-off of the road one begins to see life in earnest. There is a long and gradual ascent of a hill to a place which really deserves its name of Inspiration Point. In our land of lovely prospects, this takes a high place.

Hundreds of feet below the road is the Waikato River, seen as a narrow-ribbon of changing greens, lightening from beryl to chrysolite, darkening from emerald to jade. To describe the vista is beyond the reach of any expert in adjectives. It has the values of an aerial “shot,” and distance is lost in the sweep of valley and hill and the endless rounded downs which are distinctive in regions of volcanic origin.

The next piece of excitement was the roadside pause at the Whakaheke rapids and the Aniwhaniwha Falls. This is a dress circle view of an exquisite rainbow cascade and tremendous and tumultuous rapids which are awe-inspiring in their majestic display of the force of foaming waters.

We pass close by many more spectacular cataracts and each the picturesquely situated tea-house at Orakei-Korako. We have arrived.

It was necessary for my friend of the camera to change plates as he had taken so many pictures already, and we went for a stroll on the near side of the river towards the house of the old chief Rameka whose native-built canoe was aforetime the only means of transit to the new wonderland. Since my return I have looked up Hochstetter and here is a brief excerpt from the words of that great old explorer:

The “Artist's Palette.”

The “Artist's Palette.”

“In swift course, forming rapid after rapid, the Waikato plunges through a deep valley between steep-rising mountains … Along its banks white clouds of steam ascend from hot cascades falling into the river, and from basins full of boiling water shut in by white masses of stone.” He was only able to examine Orakei-Korako from one side, however, and the major wizardry of the place he never saw.

It is fitting though that the greatest hot pool of the place should be named after him. Its ultramarine waters are-enclosed in a formation which is a geometrically correct rectangle. Sceptics, will swear that tools have been used. I would like that great old man to come back now and go over on the roomy pontoon with its powerful cables which effortlessly carries a small army of sightseers across the swift waters. The-tea-house is backed by a grove of tall Lombardy poplars and a walk along the road here is recommended to see the coruscating display across the river.

Orakei-Korako is a blaze of colour, as I have said, and great terraced slopes of orange and blue, pink and mauve go-down to the water's edge. In some places they form gargantuan eaves where the multi-coloured hot deposits have reached the cold green torrent. The river provides a special magic. It is ever present. When the eye turns from some dazzling jewel of coloured sinter, its quiet green gives rest and: (Continued on p. 35).

page 34
page 35
The Witch's Rock.

The Witch's Rock.

contrast. That clear and cool tone underlies like a melodic theme of which the fantastic sights of Orakei-Korako are the jazz variation.

We did the sights methodically and the tour is a revelation. There is no monotony and replicas of other attractions are few and far between.

After an easy dozen or so steps the orchestra strikes up. The first item on the programme is Te Koro Koro o-te Taipo-“The Devil's Throat.” This is a forbidding crater with an underground geyser which ejects regularly. You can gaze down its horrible throat about thirty feet and the sinter deposit is of a reddish colour to add grimness to the scene. As you watch, the boiling flood rushes out, going on with its work of assembling the most amazing flesh-coloured terrace.

Then in quick succession come marvels in clusters all within half minutes of each other; the Royal Mint terraces; Cupid's Bath; a hot pool neatly christened “Man Friday Foot,” for its outline is exactly that of the chart of a chiropodist's advertisement; the Emerakl Isle Terraces, one part green, and the other orange, and as might be expected, fierce heat between; the Emerald Pool which deserves its pretty name, and for good measure there is a pool whose shape is a perfect heart.

Now we reach a flat piazza which makes an auditorium for the Diamond Geyser. This is situated half way up a cliff and shoots to the top a fountain whose waters are clear with a gem-like sparkle. Next door to it along the same ledge is the graceful geyser known as “My Lady's Lace,” which plays regularly and is forming a dropping veil of white and delicate Valenciennes of finest quality.

I should observe that part of the explanation of the reds and blues, the pinks and yellows, creams and purples, of these varying terraces is simply due to the reaction of the temperature on the mineral laden waters. The effect is bewildering because of the multitudinous variety of tint. The next surprise is the monotonous thudding, underground but woefully close, of “Queen Mary's Turbines,” but everything seen so far fades into the background of memory as a turn of the path brings the first glimpse of the greatest white silica terrace in the world.

A thousand similes occur to the mind. It is 200 feet long and 25 feet high and is fronted by a broad terrace, white also, but variegated with opaline pools and iridescent patches. The white of the big terrace is crystalline; it has the appearance of a frozen waterfall; a snow Niagara, but the fretted alabaster of its downfall, and the grace of festooned stalactites, the complex traceries of ivory and silver fretwork, invest this miracle of nature with its own loveliness; it is unique; it has no peer.

Out on the flat are two perpetually bubbling geyser pools neatly named Anthony and Cleopatra. A walk takes us to a look-out where both terraces can be seen in all their glory. The far one is called the “Artist's Palette,” and is a world sight.

A day could be spent gazing from here, for such a prodigious turmoil of colours, such a blazonry of brilliant hues has never before been assembled in one corner of the earth's surface. On the hillsides are Joseph's Coats, Harlequin costumes, gleaming slopes with purple backgrounds, greys, vermillions, and a main theme of white and yellow. The spangled mosaic of these silica floors would give Cezanne or Picasso a feeling or despair.

Put baldly, the scene makes one colour drunk and you take in your stride such strange curiosities as the Mushroom Pool, a veritable gigantic molten mushroom; the Meringue Pool producing faithful replicas of meringues in stone; The Wine Cup, a carven beaker of Grecian design; the perfect petrified Elephant; the Old Wahine; the Juliet Pool; the Mystery Pool (which has just arrived); and the homely hissing of the Henry Lawson Pool (While the Billy Boils). By way of colour contrasts you should see the Cardinal Pool which is apparently of red wine, and an unnamed terrace which is the exact colour of polished Aberdeen granite. Be reminded that the prevailing green of the pools chimes in with the river which, as the paths turn, you see below you now and again. Just as a gesture of riches to spare, there is here and there a flash of lapis lazuli, a blue as bright as the posters of the Mediterranean. That is the final effect of Orakei-Korako, the colours are those of the artist's tube and the lithograph; the brilliance is so dazzling that the result seems almost overdone, as if the stippling carried too much polychromatic pomp.

But, remember, there is always the quiet green of the river.

I have reserved for the last, the sight rather tritely called “Aladdin's Cave.” This is the crowning glory of Orakei-Korako. The entrance to this enormous wound in the surface of Mother Earth
The Throat of the Demon-mostly red in colour.

The Throat of the Demon-mostly red in colour.

page 36 is veiled by columns of tree-fern and small familiar clan of matipo and akatea vines.

From the entrance the dimensions of this enormous cavern cannot be realised; but it is 160 feet from edge to floor, and rather more than 160 feet from floor to the great arching roof. An audience of a thousand could be comfortably housed and I can visualise this as the ideal temple-a natural Grand Opera House for the real music of the Maori race. From the top step of the first stairway, a figure at the bottom looks pigmy-like. But the descent does not seem long. Here in the depths lies the veritable “Place of Adorning,” a little lake of hot, clear green water. An annex leads to a vale of steam and dark mystery.

But the splendour of this great cave is in its walls and its enormous vaulted roof. Dark blues, grave purples, dazzling reds, yellows and greens, are patterned everywhere. Strangely tinted rocks and blocks of alum lie about the floor. No picture theatre architect in the States, or temple builder in the East ever conceived such extravagance of design or such peacock magnificence of ornamentation. Yet, in spite of the gorgeous decoration of this underground palace, its vast size and the remoteness of that lofty roof, give it dignity and regal spendour. “Aladdin's Cave” will not do as a name, the gems in the Ara bian legend were inferior.

The largest white silica terrace. Orakei-Korako.

The largest white silica terrace. Orakei-Korako.

We cross to the comfortable teahouse, and my friend of the camera starts changing plates again. There is some daylight still, and certain views that he remembers simply must be got on the way home.

One rather pleasant phenomenon is recalled as we near Rotorua. There was none of the familiar sulphur odour at Orakei-Korako. The explanation is that it is much the oldest geological formation in the whole district and has entered upon a phase in which the yellow element has practically disappeared. As is a habit with facts, this rather spoils the plot of my legend with which this article begins, but it does not matter.

The chorus of the Rotorua Thermal Revue is a bevy of transcendent beauties, and Orakei-Korako is the red-haired girl of them all.

Mrs. Hills, an Auckland lady who not so long since celebrated her hundred and second birthday, doesn't seem to have much time for the modern girl. Interviewed by a pressman and asked what she thought of the cigarette habit for young ladies she replied: “The hussies! We didn't smoke when I was a girl- ’ cur mothers saw to that!” But girls didn't do lots of things when Mrs. Hills was young which they do now and think nothing of. As for cigarettes, the safe way is to follow the fashion and smoke either Riverhead Gold or Desert Gold, the two most popular brands with the “Roll-your-own” brigade. They are toasted, which remarkable process purges them effectually of excess nicotine, and at the same time greatly enhances their flavour and aroma. For men smokers who prefer the pipe to the cigarette there are three toasted blends of superlative excellence-Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish and Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog). Smokers are invited to note that the five brands named are the only toasted ones manufactured.