White Terrace - from the top

View of White Terraces with pools, dark hills in the background.

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

The Pink and White Terraces were New Zealand’s most famous tourist attraction until they were buried by the 1886 Mount Tarawera eruption. Only the most intrepid and well-off made the complicated journey to see them in person. It involved travel by sea to Tauranga, then by coach south to Ōhinemutu on the shores of Lake Rotorua, and from there to the next overnight stay at Te Wairoa, near Lake Tarawera. A canoe trip across the lake was followed by a hike over a hill to Lake Rotomahana, the site of the Te Tarata (the White Terrace), and a further canoe paddle to Ōtū-kapua-rangi (the Pink Terrace). The effort was worth it, as photographer Alfred Burton recounted:

Their infinite variety and size and form and their exquisite beauty produce at first an impression akin to bewilderment. But when the first bewildering flush of surprise has passed, there is a placidity and repose in this petrified torrent... Talk becomes painful; and the flippant sounds of tourist chatter jar upon the nerves like a discordant break in solemn music.1

1 Burton Brothers, Photographic views of the hot lakes district, North Island, NZ, c.1886, photograph album, Te Papa, AL.000218, p.1.