Lake Rotokare is a predator free scenic reserve just north of Eltham in Taranaki New Zealand. Our family spent a night exploring this cool spot.
Somehow it took us over 3 years to finally head over to Lake Rotokare. This area had always been on our list of places to explore, but somehow we just didn’t get to it. Now, I’m glad that we did because it was a lot of fun. We took a short walk, spent the night camping by the lake, and saw heaps of birds and other wildlife.
Lake Rotokare Logistics
Highlights – 2 walks, lake, wetlands, native birds (including kiwi, and hihi), native freshwater fish, and camping.
Location – 12 km from Eltham in the Taranaki region of New Zealand.
Walks – There are two tracks: Lake Walkway (4km around lake) and the Ridge Walk (6 km).
Explore Lake Rotokare
I’d heard mixed things about Lake Rotokare. Some people love it and others that visited were a bit disappointed with their hike in the area.
Personally, I was pretty excited because I was looking for a quiet place to camp with my family and I love the native wildlife. Lake Rotokare is home to heaps of native birds, including kiwi, stitchbird, NZ falcon, morepork, north island robin, and more. I had also heard there are native fish in the wetlands around the lake.
To enter this community led scenic reserve you drive through a double gate. This is to keep out predators and make sure your car and gear are all predator free. I hear there are some predators inside the fence, but their numbers are limited.
As soon as you pass through the second gate you are into a beautiful bit of native forest. This is a great broadleaf – podocarp forest dominated by tawa, rewarewa, and mahoe trees.
The road winds down towards the lakeshore where there is a designated area for camping Near that is a shelter that has informative signs about the area, including the trails to explore the scenic reserve.
After pitching our tent near the lake we took the hike around the lake to see what we could find. The trail around the lake is about 4 kms, and takes about 1 and a half hours. During our walk we saw heaps of birds, including a lot of hihi or stitchbirds. Those were super cool. We also went out onto the lake and watched dragonflies, and swans.
Back at camp, we ate dinner and then relaxed for a bit as we waited for darkness. Once it was mostly dark we went for a stroll into the bush, hoping to see some kiwi and maybe some other cool nocturnal native wildlife.
We didn’t see any kiwi, but we did see a stick insect, some crayfish, and some native freshwater fish. The crayfish and freshwater fish were in a spot where the trail crossed over a tiny rivulet on a boardwalk. We peered down into the water with our red headlamps and after some time excitedly saw both the crayfish and fish! They were super cool to discover because we weren’t expecting to see anything.
Our trip to Lake Rotokare was fun and relaxing. We didn’t see any kiwis nor were the views on the hike the magnificent views you get on Mt. Taranaki. But, we did see some lovely forest and lots of native wildlife, many of which we’d never seen before.