A Sanctuary Lake.

Hokianga, Kaitaia, Whangaroa, Man-gonui, Ahipara, places each with its own peculiar magnet of scenery and story, are within easy reach of Kaikohe. Roads feed the railway on all sides. By one road you may go southward to Manga-kahia and the northern Wairoa, and the Wairua Falls.

I have written of Omapere as the solitary lake of the North, but there is at least one other worth the seeking out; it lies a little off the Kaikohe-Mangakahia road, in the region called Tautoro. Kereru or Tautoro Lake it is called; it is the most lovely, lonely, wild sanctuary imaginable, a bush-girt lake of profound calm, with a round wooded islet rising from its centre, an ancient burial isle. Wild pigeons winnow the air from side to side by the tapu waters; tui and bellbird chant in the groves; the bush is one of the earliest places visited by the far-flying shining cuckoo, the pipi-wharauroa, on its coming in the spring of the year. For centuries this has been a burial place of Ngapuhi chiefs. The dead were ferried across to the holy isle by a tohunga in a small canoe. A classic place, spirit-haunted, steeped in mournful beauty.