More new ground for the club yesterday! One good thing with Kauri Dieback is it's forcing us to explore different ground to get some decent tramps in.

As the traffic was light on the motorway, our group hit the track at 9.30am at the park opposite the Huntly Power Station. So we headed around the loop to find a rather striking statue standing in a square pond, with the Waikato River and the park as a backdrop.

No hanging around as this trip was a cross over trip, two drivers, each group doing the opposite direction.

This track is part of the Te Araroa Walkway and is the flood stop bank for the Waikato River and sits about 2-3 metres above the cattle paddocks and golf course we worked our way along. It mostly runs about 50 metres from the river.

Not long after lunch we're almost back at the one way bridge at Rangiriri and spot Big Yellow parked waiting for us on the other side of the river as the most scenic part of this track. Gorgeous views of the river and hills to the south and river glistening to the north.

Back on the bus and we head south to go pick up the other group, almost surreal, as the road runs quite close to the track, so we can see all the turn styles, the track and where we had lunch. It's not often we can say that! We pass the others, and find somewhere safe to stop to wait for them, before moving the bus down to Huntly and Lake Puketirini, an artificial lake with quite a history. It was an open cast mine and then in 2017 it was closed and sealed and it has very quickly become a lake with many purposes. Among others, waterskiers and swimmers happily doing their thing. But more interestingly, the two barges in the centre of the lake are actually rigs for people to practice deep sea diving in this 64 metre deep lake!

They've taken a lot of effort to plant beside the track that runs around the pretty lake that we enjoyed very much.

Time to head back to Auckland with the prerequisite stop at Pokeno to wrap our chompers around the famed best Ice Cream around! Lots of smiley faces with scrumptious, generously sized ice creams!

Article about Lake Puketrini:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105230163/openpit-mines-being-transformed-into-lakes-and-wetlands