Monday Walkers explore Tikitapu and Ōkāreka

The Monday Walkers explore Lake Tikitapu near Rotorua.

The sun was shining. The snowflake on the dashboard was twinkling, telling us the air temperature was 4C. A nice, fresh, winter morning - perfect!

The closer we got to our destination the brighter the sun shone and our anticipation for a lovely day increased.

Our first stop was at Te Putake O Tawa, a new carpark that is part of the Whakarewarewa Forest Mountain Bike Park. What a wonderful facility this is with very well appointed conveniences, a huge parking area and information boards telling of the bike trails and walks in the area. Pride of place at the far end of the parking area is a large, bronze statue of Rotorua’s famous lovers Hinemoa and Tutanekai and an information board telling their romantic story.

The waters in Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake) are exceedingly high at the moment, due to the big rainfalls over summer. Tikitapu is a collapsed crater and has no outlet, so at present it is like an overfilled teacup.

We had our morning tea on the terraces out in the sunshine overlooking the lake. Our circumnavigation progressed in an anticlockwise direction. The path is easy walking and wide enough to walk two abreast most of the way, making conversation easy.

The anxious alarm call of a riroriro (grey warbler) warned the local wildlife of our presence and the ever-inquisitive pīwakawaka came to see if we were disturbing any tasty insects. The tall ponga ferns and giant redwoods made an impressive archway for us to walk under and gave us filtered views of the sparkling lake below.

The viewing path on the isthmus between Lakes Tikitapu and Rotokakahi gave us beautiful views of both lakes. The colours today were not as bright as they often are, most probably due to the increased water depth.

On the eastern side of the lake, instead of the usual meandering walk through the trees close to the water’s edge, it was a route march along the path beside the highway. The track was completely under water.

As we approached the boat ramp end of the lake someone called “Duck!” Many didn’t even bother to look up, after all, what is so different about a duck? Those that did follow the direction of the pointed finger saw the Rotorua Duck Tours amphibian vehicle entering the water down the boat ramp. It motored gently a short distance out into the lake before doing an amphibian spin, an exceedingly slow and gentle form of a jet boat spin! It is good to see the tourists are back and the associated businesses getting some work.

We drove to Lake Ōkāreka where a group of four gentlemen were sailing their model yachts in front of our lunch spot. It was suggested we run a sweepstake on the outcome of their races but the yachtsmen also decided it was lunchtime and beached their craft in favour of a sandwich.

We walked the boardwalk path to the far end of Lake Ōkāreka where its outlet runs through a short channel into Lake Tarawera.

We saw kakianau (black swans), weiweia (grebes/dabchicks), Australian coots, both mallard and paradise ducks and a whole paddock full of Canada geese, too many geese to count. Some of our group were wishing they had brought their binoculars as many birds were cruising the waters further out on the lake too far away to identify with the naked eye. A pair of kererū used the telephone lines as a sunny roost.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we completed the return journey, feeling very happy to have had such a beautiful day to enjoy two stunning lakes. Icecreams at Reporoa complemented a successful day.