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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 2 (June 2, 1930)

In the Valley of the Geysers

In the Valley of the Geysers.

Yonder at Whakarewarewa, hot springs bubble and flop within a few feet of the pakeha-Maori houses, and hot vapours rise from a thousand crevices. The valley is one gorgeously hued palette, splashed in some mad spasm with the colours from a score of titanic paint-pots. The setting for Maori life here is indeed amazing for its colour scheme. The silica terraces—papa-kowhatu—that glitter like snowfields in the sun, with a formation that resembles the most delicate coral in places, have a foil in the background of dark-green fern and manuka. There are cliffs asparkle with alum crystals, and there are rocks and earth yellow with sulphur. The banks of the brown sulphurous Puarenga stream that flows through the valley, are pitted with grey and blue and black mud-pools. There are cliffsides of amber and chocolate, and the rich red ferruginous earth of the kokowai, a red ochre which, when mixed with oil, made a paint for the Maori.

“The play of natural children is the infancy of art.” (Rly. Publicity photo.) Maori boys in characteristic poses in a hot pool, Rotorua, New Zealand.

“The play of natural children is the infancy of art.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Maori boys in characteristic poses in a hot pool, Rotorua, New Zealand.

Wairoa Geyser, which once we induced to spout in lofty volume, whenever we pleased, by casting into his throat an emetic of soap, has been inactive for many years. But Pohutu remains, the glory of Whakarewarewa, it (or “he” or “she” as Lakeland people indifferently refer to a puia) sometimes spouts away almost continuously for seven or eight hours, a long narrow column of boiling water ejected with terrific force and roarings, rising in quick pulsations, subsiding, and presently bursting forth again. Connected with Pohutu is Te Horo, or “The Chasm,” a fearful-looking deep, clear, ever-boiling cauldron, and near by is a hard-working and beautiful little geyser, Wai- page 28 korohihi, its feathery sprays falling in glittering showers and flowing in little cascades down the coralline rock to the dark stream below. Other small geysers there are; one of them, Papakura. is ever working away by itself between the manuka thickets and the river.