Lake Waikareiti

With the great Lake Waikaremoana expedition completed, and a brief overnight return to civilisation, the next day we were ready to set off on a second expedition: three days at Lake Waikareiti. This lovely lake—almost 4km in length—is about a 5km walk from Lake Waikaremoana, and has a hut at its further end which you reach by either rowing or walking. We arranged to hire a row boat for our three days, which meant that three of our party—on our arrival at the lake’s edge after a steady climb up the track—had the job of rowing the boat across the lake while the rest of us did the 8km walk around. We got the boat launched but it was not until it was well out onto the lake that we noticed that Tony had left his lifejacket behind (it’s totally obvious in the photo below, but we were all distracted at the time, what with getting the boat launched, with people in the right places, the oars in the right rowlocks, and the boat headed in the right direction!). While the rowers powered across the lake the rest of us made our way around the shore, with the kinds of rainforest and ups and downs that we’d come to know and love earlier in the week, staggering out onto the beach at Sandy Bay some two hours after the rowers.

Sandy Bay is gorgeous, as you will see in the pages of extra photos, and the water was warm enough for swimming … provided you were prepared to walk about 100m out into the lake! I had my own plans for the afternoon, however: prior to coming to NZ I had checked out if there were any geocaches in the vicinity (as you do, of course!) and I knew that one of the islands in the middle of the lake hid a secret … and not just a geocache. Thus it was that I embarked on my first attempt at rowing, with three of the other members of the party … but, of course, there was a headwind, and there were “coordination issues” with the other person rowing (I was definitely rowing in time … maybe … sometimes) … and, well, it just isn’t as easy as it looks to row properly. We made it to the island, however, and after tying up at the landing and climbing the steep stairs and following a very short track we found ourselves looking out over a big lake on the island itself: a lake on an island in a lake on an island.

In the evening there was a lovely sunset, accompanied by comments from Peter, a meteorologist, about what kind of weather it might portend.

In the early hours of the morning it was revealed that “red sky at night, shepherd’s delight” is not the most reliable weather maxim in the world: we were all woken by the sound of rain and a howling gale, that blew rain right underneath the verandah and dampened the boots that we’d left outside. This didn’t augur well for some of the plans we’d made for our day of relaxing at the hut. Things got better as the day progressed, however, and we were able to do the things that we’d hoped, such as a walk to a nearby lagoon and then a return trip to Rahui Island and Lake Tamaiti for some of those who hadn’t been there on the first trip. By the time we got back it was getting close to dinner time, and I had promised cheesecake for dessert, so it was time to get out the electric mixer and ‘frige (arm muscles and, as you will see, improvised cooling environment).

[I should note, at this point, that this middle day fell on the 12th. This means I had a bit of a quandary about how to document it, whether as part of my usual 12 of 12 series or as a subset of the whole Waikareiti trip. In the end I’ve done both, so you’ll have to check out both the additional pages for this blog entry and then the 12 of 12 blog entry in order to get the full story. If you can work out why I made the choices for what to include where, please let me know, because I can’t remember!]

Our final day dawned windy and got windier. This was fine for the hikers, who had a long walk back around the lake but at least were sheltered for most of the trip. In contrast, the poor rowers may have had the shorter journey—both in distance and in time—but they had a long battle in very choppy conditions to get the boat back across the lake to the original launching area. We were pleased to find them safely ashore but rather weary, and so we were happy to lend a hand getting the boat back into position in the storage area. We then walked back down the last section of track, visiting a nearby waterfall as we made our way back to the motor camp at Lake Waikaremoana for our final night before heading back to Napier.

Bigger and better photos of the three days at Lake Waikareiti can be found here (there are a few pages, but they’re all linked), and you also need to check out the 12 of 12 blog page for the middle day (it’ll be the next entry anyway) along with the extra set of photos that can be found there.

Finally I really must make mention of what a great bunch of walking companions I had. One of my friends from work, Mal (who wasn’t on this trip, but who’d been on another trip with Ann), commented before I left that because Ann is the kind of person she is she has great friends who are just easy to get on with … and so it turned out to be. I enjoyed their company, and, although it might be a little rude—as the youngest member of the party—to make comments about them being more than a year or two older than me, I reckon if I’m doing as well as they are by the time I get to their age I’m going to be a pretty happy person.