The New Zealand Site

In the remote ranges of Te Urewera National Park is Lake Waikaremoana - a place of clear water, isolated beaches and untouched forest.

Lake Waikaremoana Map

Lake Waikaremoana (sea of rippling waters) lies between ranges in the southeast of the park, about 160 kilometres southeast of Rotorua. Drivers beware though - the last 70 kilometres or so are on a winding unsealed road. The ranges are part of the spine of the North Island that runs down to Wellington. They’re formed of 10 to 15 million year old mudstone and sandstone forced up from the seafloor a couple of million years ago by the pressure of the collision between the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates. Since then they’ve been further folded and contorted, carved by erosion and cloaked in a dense mantle of forest.

The lake itself (elevation 582 metres) was created around 2,000 years ago when an earthquake triggered a massive landslide that blocked a river, so the lake is formed of drowned river valleys, which contribute to its interesting shape. In 1946 a government hydro-electrical project lowered the lake level by 5 metres and it now covers about 54 square kilometres within the 2,120 square kilometres of Te Urewera National Park.

Lake Waikaremoana

Maori legends tell that the lake was formed when a father drowned his disobedient daughter, turning her spirit into a taniwha (magical water monster), which frantically pushed this way and that, trying to reach the sea before the sunlight turned her to stone. It is said that her restless, unhappy spirit keeps the waters stirred and rippling even on calm days.

The Maori of the area are the Tuhoe, often referred to as the children of the mist, and said to be the descendants of the union between Hine-pukohu-rangi (woman of mist and cloud) and Te Maunga (the mountain). They have always been renowned as tough and resourceful people. With no coastline to supply seafood, few fish in their rivers and unable to grow kumara (sweet potato) because of the comparatively harsh climate of the Ureweras, they led a spartan existence in the misty forest. Their isolation and deep spiritual relationship with the forest reinforced their suspicion of European missionaries and explorers (with good reason!). One of their first contacts with Europeans was in 1841, when an Anglican and a Catholic missionary met by accident at Lake Waikaremoana. They argued their similar but different faiths together and the Tuhoe remained unconverted.

Tuhoe hadn’t signed the Treaty of Waitangi and cared little for the piece of paper that supposedly (in the English-language version, but not the Maori one) gave authority over their land to the British Crown. In the 1860s they fought alongside Waikato Maori against the invading troops (the British forgot about the Treaty when it suited them). In 1868 they gave refuge to the Maori leader Te Kooti, who led them in an initially successful guerilla war against the colonial forces. In retaliation, government troops burnt Tuhoe villages and destroyed what crops they had. Whole communities died of starvation, exposure and disease until the Tuhoe swore allegiance to the crown in 1871 and the fighting was over. They remained hostile to European influence, and surveyors working on roads there in the 1890s needed the protection of 200 armed soldiers. In the early 1900s, the prophet Rua Kenana led a self-sufficient community of over a thousand Tuhoe at the isolated settlement of Maungapohatu, until the government used the liquor laws as an excuse to arrest and imprison him in 1916 and break the community up.

After State Highway 38 was completed in 1930, there was a great deal of pressure to log the forest, burn the remains and farm the area. However, similar development on the coastal side of the ranges had already caused severe problems with erosion that persist to this day. Conservationists won in the end and Te Urewera National Park was established in 1954. It’s the largest area of untouched native forest in the North Island. Urewera means burnt genitals. It refers to a local chief on the eve of battle who slept too close to the fire, rolled in and received severe burns, dying (it is said) of shock and shame. It’s a tough (and perhaps a little sarcastic) name for an uncompromising region.

Lake Waikaremoana

Being forested hill country, mostly between 400 and 1,400 metres in elevation, it’s usually colder than nearby lowland and coastal areas, and often cloudy or misty with correspondingly higher rainfall. This does reduce the need for sunblock, but encourages those darn mosquitoes and sandflies. It’s not far to the sea and the weather can change quickly. Below 900 metres the forest is a mix of mainly rimu, northern rata, tawa and beech - above 900 metres beech is the dominant species. Birdlife is abundant. One peninsula that sticks out into Lake Waikaremoana, the Puketukutuku Range (pictured), is the heart of a Kiwi Recovery Programme. Intensive trapping of predators (750 stoat traps) and monitoring of kiwi is carried out by DOC and local Tuhoe. From the nearby Waiharuru Hut you might be able to hear kiwi calling at night from across the bay.

The DOC headquarters is at Aniwaniwa, where there is also a shop and a motor camp with cabins and camping grounds. There are many huts throughout the park and numerous great tramps, but the most popular is the 46 kilometre Waikaremoana track around the western and southern sides of the lake. It’s a DOC Great Walk, so you have to book huts and campsites before you go, but it is well maintained and full of handy bridges and ladders.

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• Lake Waikaremoana: 5 days tramping There are many huts throughout the park and numerous great tramps, but the most popular is the 46 kilometre Waikaremoana track around the western and...