Lake Kaniere

 

This place is just magic! Lake Kaniere is just outside of Hokitika about 10 minutes drive before Dorothy Falls, where we drove to last week. I don't know what it's like in Summer but it was so quiet and peaceful, no one else there but B and I - there's snow on the mountains in the distance too.

Linking up with Through my lens, Tuesday Treasures, My corner of the world and Wordless Wednesday.

Return to Kai-Iwi Lakes

Many years ago when I was about 12 years old my family use to spend summers at this wonderful place in Northland. We lived in Auckland at that point and I know it use to take a few hours to get there (from a child's memory I thought it was a long time) but was probably at least 3 hours drive.

This is the Kai Iwi Lakes in the Kaipara District of Northland also knows as the Taharoa Domain. Kai - meaning food and Iwi meaning people so food for the people I guess.

From what I know there is trout and crayfish in the lakes, there are 3 altogether; Lake Waikare, Lake Taharoa and Lake Kai Iwi - only the 2nd one is allowed to have boats or jet skiis on it. These photos show the largest of the 3.

My uncle use to go diving out near the middle and come back with crayfish and as kids we use to make up makeshift spears out of sticks and forks and try to spear yabbies, which are small types of cray.

You can see from the water near my feet how clear it is. This goes right out to where the dark blue is then it suddenly gets deeper.

The water is freshwater not salt water and the area covers 538 hectares. The golden sand use to be a favourite for us kids to enjoy every day we were there.

It is open to the public for camping but they have a strict no pets policy which is a good thing. There use to be rows of pine trees around the camp spots but I see that they have been unfortunately cut down which is sad - the world needs more trees.

So, is there a special spot you enjoy for camping?

Clear water at Lake Okataina

Road trip today and once of the spots we stopped at was lovely peaceful Lake Okataina which is the largest of 4 lakes between Lake Tarawera and Lake Rotorua. This lake has native bush all around it and there are signs up saying no overnight camping, there were only a small handful of people while we were there. Scorching hot day so we paddled our feet in the shallows.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday :-)

Camping at Lake Aniwhenua

Welcome to Lake Aniwhenua. This scenic spot is located between Kaingaroa Forest and Te Urewera National Park, it is a man make lake formed by a hydro electric dam - very popular with campers.

The lake is long and narrow with a depth of roughly 2.5m and houses plenty of brown and rainbow Trout.

We were almost going to walk up to the waterfall but decided against it as the day was just beyond stifling and hot, I'm sure we were just over it by this point as we had been out since early that morning - think we just wanted to get home but I'm sure we will make the effort again at some point.