Lake Waikaremoana Track Day 1

In December I did my 9th NZ Great Walk. I plan to do all 11. I drove up from Wellington to Wairoa the day before.

The river in Wairoa was pleasant, and very friendly accomodation at Vista Motor Lodge. The highlight of Wairoa was seeing the small size (a two story building) of the Wairoa District Council and thinking all councils should be forced to fit into a similar size building

The next morning drove for around an hour to the Waikaremoana Holiday Park where we had a water taxi booked for 8 am. The pilot (universally referred to as Captain Jack Sparrow) was super friendly, and even allowed us to change the time for our pickup on the last day. He took us to Onepoto where we started the track.

The first day is a lot of uphill. You go up to around 1200 metres and it is pretty hard work. Some people say they prefer to leave the uphill until later in the tramp when the pack is lighter, but I prefer getting it out of the way on Day 1 when fully rested.

You get some great views of the lake as you ascend.

This is the view from where we stopped for lunch. Amazing.

Quite a lot of what people call goblin forest higher up. Always beautiful.

Got to Panekire Hut around 2 pm. Great views from the lawn outside it, so spent much time there meeting other trampers. Many were following same timetable as us, so got to know quite well almost a dozen trampers. The hut is one of the older ones. and unusually has triple bunks. So lots of climbing up ladders for those at the top.

These huts don’t have gas cookers, so this was the first tramp for a while where I had to bring in a Primus. Had a passable dehydrated meal for dinner.

Hard to overstate how beautiful the views of the lake are, from so high up.

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