Nearly everywhere they are green, hilly and abundantly watered; windy, but not plagued with extremes of cold and heat.

Frost touches them but for a short time in mid-winter.
[Illustration: THE WHITE TERRACE, ROTOMAHANA] The extreme south and north of the North Island could hardly, by any stretch of imagination, be called rich and fertile.

But the island demonstrates the "falsehood of extremes," for between them is found some of the finest and pleasantest land in the southern hemisphere.
Nearly all of this, however, lies within fifty miles of one or other coast.

When you have left these tracts, and have risen a thousand feet or so, you come to a volcanic plateau, clad for the most part in dark green and rusty bracken or tussocks of faded yellow.

Right in the centre rise the great volcanoes, Ruapehu, Tongariro and Tarawera, majestic in their outlines, fascinating because of the restless fires within and the outbreaks which have been and will again take place.
Scattered about this plateau are lakes of every shape and size, from Taupo--called Te Moana (the sea) by the Maoris--to the tiniest lakelets and ponds.