3rd-7th July 2009: Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk

I am flying out of New Zealand for good on Saturday. I've had the most awesome year and will miss this place, but there are too many things at home to pull me back - family, friends, and a better selection of job opportunities even in recession. I'm fairly sure, however, that once I set foot back in London I'll wonder what ever possessed me to leave NZ.

Tim is staying on until early September to finish up his project work. Meanwhile, making the most of our time left together, we did the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk over the weekend. I've now walked 4 out of the 9 Great Walks in New Zealand, which feels like a respectable total for the year.

The walk is a 46km track south of Rotorua. It took quite a while to get there. After the 3-hour drive from Auckland to Rotorua we had another 150km to go, 80 of which were on a winding unsealed road through the national park and took easily a couple of hours. Total journey time was 6-7 hours each way, which is why we exhausted the walking options nearer to Auckland before tackling this one.

We walked the track in the standard 4 days, in company with an Irish backpacker named Owen. We met him when we shared track transport at the start of the walk, and happened to have chosen the same huts to stay in. He was doing some travelling after finishing his degree at Trinity College Dublin and before training to be a teacher.

This walk was as beautiful as usual, the track easy apart from a fun side trip to the Korokoro falls. We crossed a river by scrambling over rocks with a wire to hold on to, then walking a fallen log. It had rained the night before and the swollen river made the crossing a bit more challenging than it might have been.


What was really notable about this walk was the difference from other Great Walks owing to the time of year. Cold huts (really, two-sets-of-thermals-and-a-sleeping-bag-and-still-shivering cold), much less crowded of course, and sunset shortly after 5pm. These huts did not have solar lighting so we spent the evenings chatting or playing cards by candlelight.

Two of our three huts had feeble gas heaters which, as the DOC had warned us, barely took the chill off the air. The middle night, in Waiopaoa hut, was sheer luxury with a wood-burning stove. We only had a 3-hour walk to this hut, reaching it by lunch time, after which we spent a pleasant afternoon gathering and chopping firewood, and an equally pleasant evening watching the cosy blaze we had made. I should probably regret that my childhood was not spent doing more things like that.

Huddled round the gas heater at breakfast time.
Owen is standing up in the grey jumper.