Lake Waikeremoana Track
New Zealand

The Lake Waikeremoana Track in the Te Urewera National Park and is one of the nine Great Walks. The experience provides access to magnificent scenery, a terrain of mixed vegetation through forest, an abundance of bird life, and includes swimming and fishing opportunities.

North Island
3-4 Days
46 km

All year bookings required for huts and campsites

This is graded as an easy to moderate hike

This one of the Great Walks is through the south-west region of Te Urewera National Park which covers 212,673 hectares of the North Island. The tracks length is 46 kilometres and takes three to four days of hiking along the 248 metres deep Lake's shore to complete. A huge landslide caused the formation of this area by blocking the narrow gorge along the Waikaretaheke River 2,200 years ago.

The Lake Waikeremoana Track traverses a terrain that ranges many different types of flora and vegetation. You will get opportunities to walk through dense rainforest and Panekire Bluffs montane beech forest, displaying an abundance of bird life that you can't see on some of the other walks.

One of the additional attractions of this region is the predator controlled area allowing Kiwi numbers to increase. To prevent kiwis from declining any further, a programme started in 1991, a partnership involving several trusts and restoration programmes resulted in controlling predators on the Puketukutuku Peninsula. Kiwi numbers are on the increase and can be heard calling at night by locals and visitors to the area.

Anikiwa and Tuai are the nearest towns and you can see their positions on the map.

Managed by the Department of Conservation, it is essential that you book huts and camp sites before embarking on the walk, including anyone who does not have to pay fees such as people under 17 and children. The DOC site will provide information about fees.

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Track Maps

For free track maps covering all the New Zealand Great Walks visit my page on New Zealand Track Maps and each map is provided on the dedicated track pages linked against each walk above.