Day 8: Around Lake Waikaremoana

We left early for our drive to Lake Waikaremoana, but we stopped first at a lookout on top of Kaiti Hill in the middle of Gisborne.

This was one of many spectacular views around Lake Waikaremoana, which is in the middle of the Te Urewera National Park. The lake is not easy to get to because there are only two roads that go there. There's a very long gravel one from Rotorua, and then path that we took: a slightly shorter partially gravel road from Wairoa on the east coast. The lake area was pretty much deserted while we were there because it is the rainy season.

We took a short walk along the Aniwaniwa Falls, which are actually a collection of 3 different falls in the same area of the Aniwaniwa Stream.

We had a picnic lunch at the bottom of one of them.

More photos of the Aniwaniwa Falls.

These are called the Papakorito Falls, higher up on the same stream.

These four pictures were all taken at the top of Lou's Lookout. The way was very forested and wet, and we weren't able to see a thing until the top when we suddenly burst out of the trees and got this amazing view. Along the way up, we saw a few small caves which were formed by rocks thrusting up out of the ground at odd angles.

The first two pictures show the peak of Pukenui (1186m) and the Panekiri bluffs along the way, which was the hike we planned to attempt on the next day. (The lake is 585m above sea level.)

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