Kai Iwi Lakes (Northland)

Photos here

Ever since Brad & Shaz mentioned stumbling upon this awesome lakes when they tripped around Northland last year, I've been wanting make my way up to the Kai Iwi Lakes. With a long weekend on offer because of Waitangi Day, Anna and I headed up with Rae & Tom to check them out.

Resisting Rae & Tom's urge to leave before the sun came up "to beat traffic", we left at a reasonable hour and got up there in less than 3 hours. We first travelled along the new Northern Gateway Tollroad, which has received a fair bit of press since it opened. What a load of kerfuffle though. It is brilliant - cutting off at least 15 minutes (and probably more on long weekends such as this) with the bypassing of Orewa - though I wonder if the Dairies and Service Stations of Orewa are so thrilled by it. And for those idiots who complain about the queues to pay by the cash toll booths (though there weren't any when we went through) - you should try making it to the 21st century and pay by internet, it's so damn easy.

Skipping the thrills and sights of the infamous Kauri Museum (Anna and I are still scarred by the experience of having to follow Julie many years ago as she inspected every bit of timber and Kauri gum - and trust me, there is a lot of it), it was just a brief stop at Dargaville (and you don't want it to be any longer than 'brief') and we dropped off our stuff at the bach we had hired at Omariri Beach, just 10 minutes from the lakes. It didn't take us long to get to the lakes from there, and it didn't take us long to be wowed by the lakes themselves.

The Kai Iwi Lakes are lakes that have been formed by rainwater in depressions of sand dunes. This combines to make what is for me the best swimming spot I have ever been to in New Zealand. The lake is crystal clear and surround by soft sand, and the main swimming beach is just superb. It has a shelf that is waist deep which stretches out for 50 metres before suddenly dropping away steeply. The shelf is perfect for mucking around - and especially for throwing and catching a tennis ball (which Tom and I engaged in for hours). A group of guys had also erected scaffolding (not OSH approved that's for sure) right on the edge of the shelf with about a 5 metre jump into the deep. And if you got bored of that, you could simply go for a proper swim off the shelf.

The strange thing - to me anyway - was that the lake wasn't busier. Sure, there were plenty of people there - but I was surprised it wasn't packed. And it seemed that most people there seemed to be tourists (and mostly English tourists at that) - the lakes obviously must be on the Lonely Planet trail. Now that I know they are there, I will be definitely planning return trips whenever there is weather that is as good as we had that weekend (it was hot and we hardly saw a cloud in the sky the whole time).

So three days up north, and three days spent at the lakes. Though in the Saturday we did go for a drive further north to Hokianga Harbour, stopping in to check out Tane Mahuta - which Rae hadn't seen before. All in all, a great long weekend away. We arrived back on Sunday afternoon to an Auckland that was still baking, so had to head to the beach straight away. However, this has been followed by a week of weather as humid as I can remember - including the hottest temperature recorded in Auckland for over 100 years, and sticky nights where the low one night was recorded at 22.1 degrees (not comfortable). If only I could pop down to the lakes...