Day 9: Hiking near Lake Waikaremoana
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We planned to do a hike up to the peak of Pukenui today, but the
weather initially didn't look favorable as there was heavy fog down at
our lodge. But we gave it a stab anyway. This was an early view of our
hike and it is easy to see that the top was partially fogged in, but
the clouds moved around quickly.
This was a cool tree with a strange bend in it. You can also see
the loads of moss attached to every tree in the forest, and the moss
got even thicker as we went up higher.
Another example of moss stuck to every tree.
These five pictures were all taken at what we decided must be the
top of Pukenui, as it was the highest point on this part of the path.
(The path we were walking was actually the start of the 3- to 4-day
Lake Waikaremoana Track, which goes halfway around the lake.)
Unfortunately, we couldn't get a full 360-degree view because of the
trees, but we could see down to the lake and got a better impression of
its enormous size.
We were fortunate that the weather cleared just at the moment we
had gotten to the top. It had been foggy at the two other lookout spots
on the way up and was even sprinkling for a bit.
We stopped for a snack on the way down at one of the lookouts that was fogged in on our way up.
Another nice lookout that had been fogged in before. Somewhere up
on the hills just behind Ian is where we hiked up to Lou's Lookout the
day before.
After we got back down to the bottom, we looked back up at what we
had just accomplished. The hike took us about 5 hours in total.
After a nice hot shower, we walked along the much smaller Lake Whakamarino which is just in front of our lodge.
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