Page:Emeraldhoursinne00lowtiala.djvu/76

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A women with a hat and cloak standing on a small bridge (more a plank) with a hand railing on one side, going over a small river with trees on either side
Photo by A.L.

Chapter VII.


TAUPO AND WAIRAKEI.

Where the summer skies were blue,
Where the mosses curled and crept,
Dyed with every glorious hue
Stol’n from rainbows while they slept.”

The mosses were certainly gorgeous enough in the Geyser Valleys of Taupo and Wairakei, but they were nothing to the multi-coloured clays. And we found them not only in the boiling pools, but making mosaic of the beds of the streams and frescoes of the cliffs under their clinging ferns and moss.

We spent three days at Taupo, and were sorry indeed when the time came to move on. Each day was a picnic, and so invigorating was that pure, glorious air that in spite of the well-filled basket we took out with us we always did ample justice to the clever cookery of Miss McCarthy at dinner, in the evening.

On the morning after our arrival we walked down to the village through the Terraces’ avenue and along the side of the lake, called at the Post-office, and

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