Lake Surprise (Central Plateau) Tongariro National Park, North Island, New Zealand
By edvern on 27-Jan-12. Waypoint GC3BKA3

Today it was very windy and sunny in the morning when I was looking for the cache. Unfoturately it didn't last long. It was not easy way to Whakapapaiti hut and not very enjoyable. I am happy for the caches here and by the huts. Thank you.

My muggle sister and I parked the car at Whakapapa and took a shuttle to the Mangaturuturu track start yesterday. It was raining. A constant drizzle. Made coming down the rocks a bit narly but at least it wasn't slippery. But this morning is fine and clear and cold. I should have put gloves on but could not be bothered getting getting them out, so borderline not cold enough.And today was tough! A 100m descent into a creek only to 100m up again the other side. go along a hundred metres and its down and up again. And it is steep rocky inclines. After 6 hours we got to Whakapapaiti very tired. Amazing views though, wish I took more of Ruapehu's peak. In the early part of the day it was quite white, but the snow got less very quickly.I always thought Lake Surprise would be go around a corner and surprise! Lake! And pretty much that's exactly what it was. I dropped the pack of and sis waited for me while I shot off to find the cache. Love having caches off track and a decent size and an awesome area so Fave.

What an incredible location!"Round The Mountain"! That hike was high on our wish list for a long time. We finally could manage to get here and have had four great days tramping around this mountain with its diverse landscape.Thanks for leading us to this amazing spot!

Hiked from the Bruce Road to the Ohakune Mountain Road on a perfect autumn day. Picked up this geocache along the way. Lake Suprise was a surprise to find this size body of water perched above a low valley so nearby. Thanks for putting a geocache here.

Great spot for a cache, tftc

Wow what a surprise. Found it thanks. Weekend out exploring the mountain with the girls. Evening walk up from the hut.

On a recce of the Goat course with Charlotte, took the opportunity to cache a well

During the walk to the Whakapapaiti Hut ...
What es nice place, thank you and greetings from Germany

TFTC say Fawkes.de

Tftc!

Found with Apache our mission today was to walk to Lake Surprise and back from the carpark up the hill to Turoa . Made our way here and back in 3 1/2 hours my 16 year old Apache was setting the pace hes alot fitter that me but i kept up stuffed now though we are back in Rotorua might regret it tomorrow at work but itnwas a fun day.
Tftc

TFTC, found on a day walk with Polargirl while staying in Ohakune.

Our mission today was to walk to Lake Surprise and back from Ohakune and find a few caches along the way. We stopped here for lunch. What an amazing place. TFTC

Found it easy. Beautiful place. I have to give my FP. This is one of the most beautiful located caches during my journey on New Zealand. Inventory and also the log book are dry and in good conditions. I recommend this cache. Greetings from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Thanks for the cache.

What an awesome place! This is truely magical and well worth a cache I was surprised to see were the first to find this since almost one year.

Thanks for sharing this awesome spot, well worth a blue point!

Easy find, nice place, stayed at Mangaturuturu Hut, recommended walk, except I did not enjoy getting down/up the waterfall section, eeeek.. Thank you!

Lovely morning. I can now tick this one off.

Found by baggage lady and the seeker... On the 30th December 2016

Great little spot off the track with a good view. Tftc

Our last cache on the track around Ruapehu TFTC

23:50
Found during nice long walk: round the mountain Ruapehu- all together from SH1 to SH1 it was almost 90 km during 24h, over the night.
This was found just before midnight. Nice lake. Great place to walk. Here I had the second longer break during the walk. Lots of stars on the sky.
TFTC

Found during an amazing hike

TFTC

called and checked out cache.
took travel bug
TFTC

Lake Surprise track… what an awesome walk! Walked down with fanfan-77 from Mountain road to Mangaturuturu Hut where we dropped off some our gear (food/sleeping bags as we planned to spend the night there) before continuing up to Lake Surprise. What a climb, but worth it. Highly recommend this track it’s lovely and the hut is a great place to stay. Super spot for a cache and just enough room to drop of TB "Sammakon loikka". + favourite point for location TFTC

This entry was edited by sveppi on Tuesday, 10 March 2015 at 08:33:58 UTC.

This was one of my 2 main goal caches for this week's holiday. Came here with sveppi as she said from the Mountain Road. This was not an easy walk, but a heck of a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful. The silica rapids are amazing and the views as we come down to the hut are pretty cool too. I was glad it was an overcast day (no view of the summit today) or else it would have been a very hot walk! First time overnighting in a hut for me, and only second time carrying a heavier pack, which made for slow progress. Yet it was only 90-odd minutes to the hut, and after dropping off some gear we made much quicker progress up the steep path to the lake (40 minutes). Was a bit disappointed to see such a small container, as I really wanted to drop off my brand new Mountain Goat TB. Not to be discouraged I recycled a ziplock from my pack and left her on top of the container. Thanks for taking us here, well worth it.

After stopping for lunch at Mangaturuturu hut I tackled the unrelenting climb up to lake surprise, on the way to Whakapapaiti hut. Hunting for the cache was a good excuse to ditch the pack for a few minutes. Lots of sundew plants in the area. Cache soon spotted. TFTC.

The weather was not as good as it could be at this time of the year but I had a really nice hike to this lake and it was a really nice surprise to see the lake in an unestimated moment.
Thank you for that one.
Regards from Bavaria
CR

Amazing location and views, Found while on our round the mountain trek. Tired legs to get to this one.
Daughter found it while I stood next to it scratching my head. "the GPS shows right here?" not having looked at the clue. Apply child. Found!

What an amazing spot to bring people, thanks. We're on our last leg on the round the mountain trek and enjoying every minute of it.

Found while walking between the bruce rd and ohakune

Awesome spot and a nice place for a break. Beware the mud!

Fantastic day today! On a walk from Ohekune rd to Whakapapa Village. Stayed at Mangaturuturu hut last night. Awesome walk! Looks like someone else has been here and signed the log but no log on-line.

Lovely walk and views

What a nice place. Despite we were well prepared for the lake, it came as .... surprise, indeed.

143 got caught out by GPS. Stayed at Mangaturuturu hut and GPS wanted me to scale a cliff face. Next day an easy find while doing the Round the Mountain Track.

We made it!!. Our kids (9&7) did their first overnight stay at Mangaturuturu hut. Stopped there for lunch and went on to the lake and the cache. Busy night at the hut with 16 inside and 10 in tents outside. We are so glad we did it!! TFTC

What an amazing walk! I didn't really know what to expect, so was more surprised by the cascades than the lake. Crossing the slips near the start of the track (from Mt. Rd.) & descending the cascades was a bit of a challenge/slightly daunting on my own; after a quick rest stop at the hut, I luckily found the river was very low & easy-peasy to cross in comparison so happily carried on to the lake, where Surprise! a backpacker magically appeared (they came down the track from Whakapapaiti Hut).
Thanks for the cache & that little extra incentive to go the distance
-TB

Found on day two of three of our journey around the mountain over Queen's Birthday. We were only halfway through our long day's walk from Mangaehehu to Whakapapaiti, and on reaching the lake I nearly couldn't be bothered walking the extra 100m to find the cache...but Stef reminded me that I was unlikely to be back for while, and off I went. Thanks, Stef! The cache was easily found (thanks, edvern!) and before long I'd caught up with the others en route to Whakapapaiti. Thanks for the cache.

Ive found cache number 100. Walked in with Dizzboy007, weather was hot, no sing of any rain but conditions where great for the walk.
TFTC

Nice walk, very happy to see a cache in such a rewarding spot... Left behind Travel Bug Was a very hot day, had to treat myself to quick swim in the fresh mountain stream. Cheers.

Found on the fifth day of our 5 day Round the Mountain tramp with JimmyNZ. Cache was very dry inside. I uplifted Rattls pet rock to add to my collection. TFTC!

Not so suprised to find a lake, a little that the weather cleared enough for Greenslime and i to see it.

Nice weather today, the cloud level just over the top of the mountains. A fun challenging walk here, starting off about 100m above the snowline. Now the uphill slog back to the road, hopefully the cascades and rivers are still low enough! TFTC

Had a great walk here - the one you suggested just to Lake Surprise and back. Beautiful cascades on the way and a nice hut for lunch, then a quick find at the lake. Thanks, we had a great day!

Was staying in a hut at Iwikau Village with Edvern. Hadn't been to Lake Surprise since I was a teenager about 48 years ago. Tried to get there about 6 years ago but we were defeated by darkness and torrential rain that made even the smaller streams uncrossable forcing a very miserable night out in the open without tents. So looked forward today to getting to the cache with friends from England. A bit short on time we raced up to the lake, quickly found the cache and were spotted by Sigoli. A pleasure o meet another cacher in such a remote and pleasant location. From Ohakuna Mountain Road this is surely the most challenging section of the round-the-mountain track. Thanks Edvern for the fun afternoon.

T2F!. Interesting walk into the hut ascending down the waterfalls. Whilst Mrs Sigoli rested I shot up to have a quick hunt without aid of my GPS. After a 20min search around the track area to no avail, I was about to shoot back to keep to our deadline... Lo a couple of trampers stode by with a GPS in hand, so I waited and listened as they zeroed in to the cache. I couldn't believe my luck, I followed them, and sprung MapperTed and Co for the find. Nice to meet you guys. And off out, back down to the hut, up the falls and to the car all in about 3.5 hours. Thanks Edvern (who we bumped into on the track), but weren't aware you were cachers at the time. TFTC (Oh and beaten by Rattll once more to the cache!)

We'd been waiting for an opportunity to do this cache since it came up. It was a little chancy, but we thought we could beat the weather bomb predicted for later tonight.
It was really cold when we got to the car park, & I almost chickened out of the run, but warmed up once down in the shelter a bit.
It was more of a half run, half walk, with all the rock scrambling, following stream beds etc, but we loved it!
Got to the hut in about 30 mins & GZ about 15 mins later. Easy find once there.
Took about 10 mins longer on the way back - & was pretty stuffed, but really enjoyed the day.
Fantastic scenery & views from the lake.
Rain started about an hour later!
Thanks for a great cache, & the FTF. Left a pet rock - a blue whale.

This entry was edited by rattll on Friday, 02 March 2012 at 08:28:50 UTC.

Good to see a few caches going in around here. I walked past this lake on my way around the mountain a few years ago. A nice 23 hour day-walk on Christmas eve in which I encountered blistering sun, rain, hail and even snow - all very appropriate for the festive season!

Published