Looking for the lake

Liz Light takes a family excursion to a lake with an island with a lake. It’s a big mission involving long walks, row boats, special access and picnic baskets, but it’s a memorable day.

looking for the lakeDeep in Tuhoe territory there is a lake, in that lake there is an island and on the island there is another lake. This geographical phenomena has the allure of legends and that it is in the middle of Te Urewera National Park, and not easy to get too, adds to its appeal.

Te Urewera National Park is rugged, remote and enormous (2,127 square kilometres); it’s the largest tract of native bush in the North Island.

Lake Waikaremoana is the national park’s biggest and better-known lake. Highway 38 winds around its northern edges, there are many camping spots and a general store at Aniwaniwa. The mystical lake, Waikareiti, the one with the island and the lake on the island, is two kilometres from, and 300 metres higher than Waikaremoana, its famous big sister. And the walk to it, from the road, is an up-hill hour.

Early in the morning, when it’s still chilly, we – a family group of five – puff up the path. The forest is breathing too; exhaling mist that changes shape. This rain forest is dominated by red and silver beech trees with giant rimu thrusting their crowns through the canopy. Fern fronds have drips on their points and skeins of pale hanging moss are woven with diamond drops.

Lake Waikareiti is fully surrounded by pure native forest. Its silver-blue fingers penetrate valleys and islands protrude from its body. This lake’s beauty is not overt, it’s secretive and mysterious.

We have already arranged to hire a DOC dinghy at the Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre, and have picked up the life jackets and the key needed to access the oars. The aluminium dinghies are a decent size and have two pairs of rowlock holes, so Sam and Rod can row in unison, galleon-style.

Brax, 18 months old, toddling and cute in his little blue life jacket is wide-eyed-delighted as the men move the dinghy across the rippling water of Waikareiti. Waikareiti means small ripping water, in deference to Waikaremoana, ‘sea of rippling water’ and the lake on Rahui Island, to which we are heading at an impressive speed, is called Tamaiti, child.

It’s a little child; bigger than a pond but only just a lake. It’s totally in shade, fully surrounded and overhung by forest and it’s spooky. We don’t linger long. Back on the sparking mother-lake our gallant rowers up the pace and point the nose of the dinghy south west to a sandy beach basking in the sun.

The water is as pure as all New Zealand’s water should be. There are no introduced weeds, algae or other aquatic plants and it’s so clear that we can see dark patterns of decaying leaves on the bottom many metres below. There are introduced trout, brown and rainbow, and in the distance a father and son, in another DOC dinghy, row sedately and fly-fish.

Picnics have never been lovelier than this. The sun has banished the morning chill, the beach is warm and windless, a smoothly weathered log is seat height and Brax finds a small stream joining the bay and is soon gleefully getting wet and dirty.

We growns-ups make sandwiches, doze, swim and bask in the pristine beauty of this place. The lake on the island in the lake is the hook that pulled us here. But, as with most dreams and destinations, it’s the journey and what happens along the way that has the tangible, memorable magic.

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