Lakes and Forests.

Other lakes there are, and these, to one's mind, more entrancing than wondrous and fearsome Roto-mahana. The great charm of some of them, especially Okataina, is the rich and lovely forest which covers so much of the shore. I have seen nothing finer around our North Island lakes, even Waikaremoana, than the cliff-climbing forest of pohutukawa trees on the western shore of Okataina. For nearly a thousand feet, from waterline to skyline, it clothes the mountain side, and glorious indeed it is in the midsummer season of bush flowers.

Then there is Rotoiti, about which a book could be written; there are also those lakes of the woods, Rotoehu and Rotoma, true places of enchantment, all within a few hours' car run of Rotorua town. And in forest drives there is nothing in our land to excel in fragrant solemn beauty the three miles avenue through the rimu woods between Rotoiti and the north end of Okataina. It is a wild poem, a picture of the real New Zealand, that should be treasured as one of the most precious things of our country.