seeing and speaking to no one but Maoris and rough labourers, from one year’s end to another!
When we arrived at Atia-muri and saw the “hotel” I felt very anxious as to the manner in which Mrs Greendays would take the too-obvious change from the comforts of the Terraces Hotel. She was very tired, cold, and wet, how would her nerves stand the discomforts of this poky hole when she most needed luxury?
I was agreeably surprised. Mr. George Parsons, mine host of the inn, was an old acquaintance of Colonel Deane’s sporting expeditions, and had by him been advised of our coming. He came out to meet us when the sound of our wheels advertised our approach, and so sincere were his apologies for not being able to offer better fare and lodging that the threatening cloud on Mrs Greendays’s brow vanished, and she in turn began to apologise for our late arrival.
So all was well. She accepted with a laugh the odd little room with all its lack of comfort, sympathised with Mrs Parsons on her loneliness and the difficulty of educating the children, and quite won the old sportsman’s heart by her admiration of his antlers and skins, trophies proudly displayed on the walls of the dining-room. We certainly had no cause to complain of the fare. Mr. Parsons had been out shooting and fishing in our honour, as the groaning table testified, and we tasted several new kinds of game and fish that night, all beautifully cooked, the only thing we did not like being the very fat and rather coarse meat of the “mutton-bird.” It looked like mutton, and it tasted. I thought, like goat! (I have never to my knowledge tasted goat, but I can quite imagine what it is like, especially after trying that mutton-bird!)
After dinner Mr. Parsons brought out all sorts of curiosities to show us, and kept us entertained to a late hour with his adventures and hair-breadth escapes, which were amusing and thrilling if not true. And the next morning he insisted on driving us back along the road we had come by to see the Anawinewine Falls, and then took us to what he called his “opal reef” to try and find some specimens of matrix opal, (in which search needless to say we were unsuccessful!) so that it was nearly noon before we set off for Rotorua.
The rain had cleared the air, made the roads free from dust, if a little heavy, and freshened up the countryside, so that we thoroughly enjoyed the drive, especially as it was all among and in and out of the hills again. We passed a flax-mill and two or three farms, chiefly for sheep, and in spite of several halts for photographing and refreshment per Phyllis, we got into Rotorua at about five.
And after a very sober, stay-at-home Sunday, with church in the morning, writing letters all the afternoon, and a farewell visit to dear “Rachel the Witch” at night, we caught the Auckland Express on Monday at nine-thirty, for Te Aroha.
