Lake Waikermoana

Here is yet another blog about a hike a did in New Zealand. If you are sick of my hiking stories and beautiful pictures then please stop reading. However if you are not sick of hiking stories read on....
Here are links to all the other hikes I've done.
The Kepler
The Routeburn
The Able Tasman and The Heaphy
The Tongaririo Northern Circuit 
And a hike a did in the Indian Himalayas because why not?!
Lake Waikermoana (yeah I can't pronounce it either) was my sixth and last Great Walk in New Zealand (tear). And it was awesome. I really wanted to do this walk because it is the only one around a walk and it just looked great. I was happy to be able to squeeze the hike in last minute it with my trusty hiking partner Dan Harrison. 

Here he is again, Dan Harrison

The first challenge was getting to the start of the hike. Maybe I didn't do my research but no where did it say that you have to drive over 100 kilometers (62 miles) on a dirt road to get to the middle of nowhere a.k.a where the hike starts from. Honestly the last part of the drive was amazingly long. How is it that thousands of people do this hike every year and nowhere do they warn you that you must drive on a dirt road for almost 3 hours and why don't they pave the road?! But alas we made it. We stayed at Big Bush Holiday Park. We were the only people staying there and ended up having a whole house to ourselves which was nice. We made dinner and made a huge mess packing. We didn't see the owners or anyone who worked at the Holiday Park until the next morning when went to try get a ride to the start of the hike (thats NZ for ya).

Oh thats a lake alright

We did the 44 kilometer hike (27 miles) in three days and two nights. The first day we climbed uphill all day. We were mostly in the forest and didn't have many views of the lake besides a couple lookouts. It was nice to be in the shade of the trees though because it was so hot! We made it to the hut pretty early in the day. I feel asleep when I was reading my book in sun and burned my back and legs. I am still trying to get rid of the shorts and tank top tan that is sadly still with me.

Video from Bald Knob Lookout #greatname

Lion King pose because I was inspired

Are you sick of pictures of this lake yet?

Sunset :)

On the second morning we began walking through an AMAZING moss covered forest. It was seriously cool.

Crazy trees!

Black swans

Not bad, eh?

After we ate lunch on the second day we took a side trip to a pretty awesome waterfall. So nice to walk without our packs.

Waterfall

Dan and waterfall.

View from the bottom

Our first swimming spot

Dan going for a very cold dip

View from the second hut

Second hut

 

The last day was pretty cruisey. We hiked for a couple hours then a water taxi picked us up at 2 pm. The water taxi took us to where we started the hike from then we got a ride back to the holiday park. From there we started the super fun drive out on the dirt road. Everyone else doing the hike that day decided to take the other way out even though it was in the wrong direction. They kept calling the road creepy and wishing us luck, so that was nice. To be clear the road isn't creepy, it is a pain in the ass.

All in all, GREAT HIKE. Geeze New Zealand is nice. I miss it already.