From Kuwharua our course lay along the northern portion of the Te Pakaru Plain, and between the Kakaramea Ranges and the eastern boundary of the Tuhua Forest. The whole country hereabouts had a park-like appearance, and was everywhere covered with native grasses, save the lower hills, which were mostly clothed with fern. We had now reached the western watershed of Lake Taupo, the first stream flowing in that direction being the Koromanga. Near to this point the native track by which Hochstetter passed in 1859, on his journey to Maketu by way of the eastern side of Lake Taupo, leads to Tokanu, and if we had followed it to the westward it would have been our nearest route to Alexandra; but as the country along its course had already been described by that traveller, I determined to take a different direction, in order to explore the great table-land of Western Taupo, and thence to penetrate to Alexandra by the country to the northward of the great central mountain chain ending in Titiraupenga, and which was represented on the maps of the colony as covered with forest, and on that of Hochstetter as a volcanic table-land "thickly covered with forest, and unexplored." Indeed, so little was this portion of the country known, that even at Tapuwaeharuru, where Turner questioned the natives upon the natural features of this region, he was informed that it was covered with dense bush, and that it would be impossible to travel through it for any distance, and especially on account of the numerous rivers and creeks that would have to be crossed. The information we thus gained proved to be erroneous so far as the forest was concerned, since we afterwards discovered that a broad, open table-land, averaging in height from 1700 to 2200 feet above the level of the sea, extended far inland along the whole western shore of Lake Taupo, while the enormous area of country still further to the north and westward, and described on the maps as before alluded to, turned out to be a perfectly open table-land, covered with some of the finest grassed plains in the country, and watered by numerous streams, some of which were among the largest tributaries of the Waikato River.