The Long & Winding Road(s)

We’ve run into a theme where many roads in New Zealand are long, winding, and lack concrete and signs. Well, we sure hit the longest of the windy roads when we drove into Te Urewera National Park. The thing is, looking at a map of New Zealand doesn’t give you a real sense of how far away things really are. We started into the Te Urewera National Park from the north (the main part of the park for hiking and lake activities is in the south) thinking we’d be there in a jiffy.  Over 2+ hours later and about 1,000+ potholes, we pulled up to our Motor Lodge after dark.

The park starts after dark

The next day, we got up early to hike. We saw several waterfalls, and then we did Lake Waikareiti Track, which takes you to a lake where you can hire (rent) a rowboat and then row to an island that has another lake on it! Unfortunately that island was shut down, but we were able to take the row boat out around some of the islands.

Papakorita Falls

Hiking to the lake with a life jacket hooked to my pack

Our rowboat

Seth is a really good rower

One of the islands on the lake

Hiking up to the vista for sunset

We completed the day with a lovely sunset hike over the lake.

Sunset over Lake Waikaremoana

The next morning, we headed out to Lou’s Lookout, a very steep hike that has a lovely lookout of Lake Waikaremona. Seth set up his tripod and got some of these great gems:

We had a couple firsts in this park-our first time on the trip staying at one camp for two nights in a row and my first time rowing (although I let Seth do most of the work, it’s quite hard!)

Looking out on Lake Waikaremoana

Lake Waikaremoana