Lake Waikaremoana

December 29^th, 2019

My Kiwi friend Braden’s next recommendation (and so far I’ve approved of all of his selections) was Lake Waikaremoana, which was only 40 kilometers away as the crow flies but wow, what a slow, windy and mostly gravel road.  I think it took me close to 3 hours to make that journey.

But before leaving the area of the Sanctuary campsite, I went for a short hike to Waiatiu falls which was about a 15 minute drive away followed by a 30 minute hike.  It was a nice forest and there were some longer trails you could do but I didn’t feel like a 10 km hike which was the next option as I wouldn’t get to the next freedom camping spot until late in the afternoon.  With it still being the Christmas holiday season, I thought it wise to arrive sooner than later at any freedom camping spot.

As I previously mentioned, it was a slow, serpentine-like, gravel road.  Looking on the map, I noticed that the road did eventually curve along the contours of the lake.  I assumed that I’d be cruising along the shore.  Well no, in fact most of it did run along the lake, but from one to three hundred feet up.  It was kinda cool and made for some nice photos.  Interesting terrain for sure.

Some falls that I could view from the road across a narrow valley.  The road continued on and passed just above the falls which you can see here.

There was one stop I planned to make before reaching the campsite, which was another 30 minute hike to see an 800-1000 year old tree.  That sounded fantastic.  However, since the mobile reception was spotty in that area, I missed the trailhead and almost passed by the one free camping spot in the area known as Rosie’s Bay.  It was a relatively small narrow area in the pocket of an inlet and when I arrived there were 3-4 tents and their cars on one side of the gravel road near the lake, bushes on the other side and then a slightly larger area near a boat ramp.  There was really only one place to put Betty 2.0, I tried another spot but it was not very level.

Some black swans in the lake.

Neat rock formations you could see from the campsite.

When I first arrived, it was quite hot although I was able to shelter under the shade of the open hatchback of the van.  Initially I thought for sure I’d go for a dip in the water to cool off but after seeing and hearing the trepidation and shrills from chills from other bathers, I opted not to go in.  I did have an enjoyable afternoon and evening though playing some chess, working on the Rubik’s cube (I can kinda solve it now!) and writing up some blog entries.

We couldn’t see the sunset from our vantage point but the sky was gorgeous with just a waning slice of moon with a planet nearby, perhaps Jupiter, which I was surprised I could see with still that bright of an evening glow.  Very cool.