Hiking Lake Waikaremoana -- New Zealand

We spent four days/three nights hiking around Lake Waikaremoana with the NZ company Walking Legends. There were 5 of us on the hike, along with Brad (the bearded guy) who was our guide.

The hike was challenging. In New Zealand, they call them "tramps" and they rated this one as moderate, but by our standards it was pretty hard. I would call it a "scramble" with a very rough track. Lots of tree roots to negotiate and a several sections where we went up and down and up and down and .... When we first heard about it, we sort of thought about this as a "walk around a lake." But it was much more than that.

All of which is not to say that the hike wasn't well worth doing. On the contrary, the trek was through some wonderfully beautiful country, it was well-organized, and we both had a real sense of accomplishment in the doing of it. We are pleased and proud to have done the hard work on this (and we should also note that some of our companions, who were younger than us, didn't find it particularly hard at all!).

The first day was a nice slow hike in from the entry point down to the lake. Waikaremoana means (if we remember correctly) "lake of rippling waters" and on a clear day it certainly deserves the name. The breezes across the lake set up ripples and waves that reflected the sunshine delightfully. The lake itself is located in Te Urewera national park, a rugged area of large mountain ranges. Amusingly, Urewera is Maori for "Burnt Penis" and commemorates an unfortunate event involving a Maori warrior and his camp fire -- one can only imagine.

We ended the first night at a wonderful cabin in the woods, right at the lake's edge. After a robust dinner and a good hard sleep it was off for the second day -- a much harder hike of 18 kilometers (11 miles) all on the same rough track. Still, even with the ups and downs the track was essentially flat near the water and pleasant enough.

The third day's hike proved a different story. Essentially, it was 4 hours of up and nothing but up through a silver beach tree forest with wonderful ferns grown throughout. As if "up" wasn't hard enough, it was raining all day. After a 600 meter climb, we arrived at the third hut soaked to the skin and dog-tired.

But oh what a great afternoon and evening. Soon Brad had a blazing fire going in the iron stove fireplace. We climbed out of the wet clothes and into dry ones and hung the wet ones up on the line above the fire to dry. The dinner was a simple chicken, vegetable stir-fry but it tasted fantastic. The only thing missing was the promised view of the lake -- the rain clouds set in and just covered the sky.

On the next morning, we took a group photo during a brief clear moment (that's it at the top) and then headed down, down, down to the waiting bus. It was dry this time around, but as always the stress of down on the knees is almost as challenging as the stress of up is on the quads. But we made it ... and at the bottom, Rob (the owner of Walking Legends) had waiting for us grilled sausage with onions and a beer. Honestly, we both thought it was probably the best meal we'd had in a long time -- nothing tastes better than a beer to wash down a hard physical effort and success.

We really can't say enough about Brad, our guide, and the Walking Legends team. The entire trek was well organized and put together, the people were friendly, and the scenery (despite the rain) was just magical. We are glad we got to see New Zealand in this special way.