Te Urewera, according to eye-watering local legend, was named to commemorate a nocturnal incident involving the leader of a war party, someone else’s wife and the painful conjunction of his nether regions with a campfire.
The rugged, forested expanse also boasts the largest untouched swathe of bush in the North Island. Deer and pigs abound here, and the dense, luxuriant rainforest forms a handsome setting for the gem that is Waikaremoana, ‘the lake of rippling waters’.
The track that performs a half-circuit around the lake is one of New Zealand’s Great Walks and makes for an unforgettable tramping experience. It covers a total distance of 46km and while there are seven huts en route, it can be covered in a relatively easy four days. You can trace the route online or, even better, experience it for yourself...
The track can be tackled from either direction, but if anyone tries to tell you to do it from the Onepoto Bay end, disregard their advice and shun them as fools thereafter. Far better to start at Hopuruahine Landing, so that by the time you tackle the formidable climb to Panekiri Bluff on the second-to-last day, your pack is much lighter.
Waikaremoana was formed when a landslide triggered by an earthquake dammed the tributaries of the Waikare-Tāheke River.
Divers and grumpy anglers report a sunken petrified forest at one end of the lake. The walk follows the foreshore on either flat or undulating terrain, until that final gasping ascent through the tortured and moss-bedecked forms of ancient beech trees to Panekiri Bluff, which commands a gob-smacking view over the lake and the deep green Urewera ranges.
At Onepoto Bay, the outlet to the track, there are the remains of an Armed Constabulary redoubt and the tombstones of soldiers who were killed there in one episode of the touchy relationship between Tūhoe and the Crown.
The lake is great fishing and if you don’t feel up to walking the entire track you can get a water taxi to pick you up or drop you off on sections of it, such as at the entrance to the short but rewarding walk up to Lake Waikareiti.
The wider Te Urewera offers plenty of other short or long walks, and the hunting is as superb as the terrain is challenging. And never mind all that physical stuff, one of the great beauties of the Urewera is just how pretty the roads are, in and out.
Te Urewera – enjoy, but mind that campfire.