Lake Okareka

Lake Okareka
Location	Rotorua District, Bay of Plenty Region, North Island
Coordinates	38°10′S 176°22′E / 38.167°S 176.367°E / -38.167; 176.367Coordinates: 38°10′S 176°22′E / 38.167°S 176.367°E / -38.167; 176.367
Type	Crater Lake
Primary outflows	Waitangi Springs
Catchment area	19.8 km2 (7.6 sq mi)
Basin countries	New Zealand
Max. length	2.8 km (1.7 mi)
Max. width	1.9 km (1.2 mi)
Surface area	3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi)
Average depth	20.0 m (65.6 ft)
Max. depth	34 m (112 ft)
Surface elevation	355 m (1,165 ft)
Settlements	Lake Okareka
References

Lake Okareka is one of four small lakes lying between Lake Rotorua and Lake Tarawera, in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. The others are Lake Rotokakahi (Green Lake), Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake), and Lake Okataina. All lie within the Okataina caldera, along its western edge.

The lake has a circumference of 6 miles (9.7 km) and lies about 60 metres (200 ft) above Lake Tarawera. Its outlet flows underground for half a mile and forms the Waitangi waterfall. In fact, the Okareka lake seems to be connected with the Tarawera by underground channels.

This small and little-visited lake is a place of much charm, surrounded by hills nearly everywhere thickly wooded. It is quite near, but out of sight from the tourist motor route of Rotorua and Tarawera; a side road gives access to it. Anglers find good sport there, but otherwise its solitude is not disturbed yet. Many years ago a settler acquired some of the land around it, and built his house on a low-lying isthmus which connects an island-like hill in the middle of the lake with the mainland. Some of the frontage is still in private hands, but the greater part of the sylvan basin in which the lake lies has now become residential property.

Okareka means "the lake of sweet food". In early times, Māori grew sweet potatoes or kumara around the outside of the lake. It first described in print by Sir George Grey, and poetic mention of it is made by Alfred Domett in his "Ranolf and Amohia." Grey visited it on the course of his travels through the Lakes Country to Taupo in the summer of 1849-50. The journey is described in that rare little book entitled "Journal of an expedition Overland from Auckland to Taranaki", written for the Governor by his secretary G. S. Cooper, with a translation into Maori by his interpreter, Piri-kawau; the book was published in Auckland in 1851. In those days, the route from Ohinemutu to Tarawera was a track which skirted the shore of Okareka and reached the large lake near the mission station called Kariri (Galilee). It was a blistering hot day when Governor Grey and his party took the foot trail from Rotorua to Tarawera, and the narrator says they were "nearly stewed".

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