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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 6 (October 1, 1927)

The Bays of Lake Rotoiti

The Bays of Lake Rotoiti.

But the bays of Rotoiti are the true havens of enchantment. Here there are no boiling puias except that idyllic hot spring of Manupirua, softly issuing from the pumice beneath its ancient overshadowing pohutukawa tree. All is quietness and sylvan beauty. Bays within bays there are, wooded from water-edge to skyline, and great fern-trees almost dip their feather-like fronds into the deep blue waters. Old village sites there are in these bays, gone back to the wilds, and the cherry groves, which seem to flourish even in the bush, bear full well for the summer-time picnicker, who has them all to himself, for to the Maori, as often as not, they are tapu. Knolled headlands, of a picture-like prettiness, once stockaded holds of the Arawa, such as storied Motutawa with its white-faced “suicide cliff,” project into the lake, and between them curve the daintiest of whitebeached bays of smooth pumice sand lapped by the gently breathing waters of the calm deep lake. On these shelving sands the motor-launch may be run nose on and moored to one of the overhanging trees, safe from all the winds that blow. On the sands the day's trout catch, or rather, a part of it, for the gods are very kind to fishermen in these parts, will be grilled in the camp-fire, and tent and launch will replace the town hotel. For that matter, in the spells of fine rainless weather there is no need for the tent; the pohutukawa boughs make roof enough, and the wall-less bedroom on the sands gives space enough to fill the lungs with Nature's pure, germless air. Up again in the morning early, before the mists have cleared from the sleepy lake, to catch one's breakfast of trout, and perhaps a dish of the little koura, the fresh-water crayfish, that still abounds in these parts and that may be caught either with the habitant's trawl net or by the more primitive expedient of lowering weighted bundles of fern over the boat's side where they are seen through the clear waters crawling on the white sandy bottom. If you like the bay you may stay there, for no one will disturb you, or you may move on to another cove, fishing as you go, and finding secure moorings every night.