Okataina Craters (Bay of Plenty) Lake Okataina, North Island, New Zealand
By funkymunkyzone on 06-Jun-12. Waypoint GC3MME9

Found - Mrs McMike2012 & I live full-time in our caravan travelling around NZ, visiting the places we want to visit & doing the things we want to do and fitting in a bit of Geocaching here & there currently staying nearby for a few days decided to go for a drive out to the Lake Okataina area, walk some tracks & see if we could find any caches crisp, fresh but dry winter morning, ideal for a walk visited the various waypoints gathered the required info & took some photos read a bit on Google once we got back answers have been messaged to the Cache Owner, logging this in anticipation of receiving the all clear pleased to add another 'smiley face' to the tally TFTC ... TN except photos:LN:no L to S #5,656 for Us!

What a great place to put an earthcache. We really enjoyed our visit. Answers sent to the cache owner.

Great earth cache - thank you FunkyMunkyZone.

Travelling up to Whakatane so wasnt too far to detour for this Earthcache. Noted that theres an Earthcache souvenir available this weekend so motivated to complete this one. Enjoyed the 2 km walk which we have previously skipped when visiting Otakaina. Sent answers. Carried in to Okataina Lake and found the Eastern walkway was closed. Glad I had already stretched my legs. Thanks for the interesting cache.

I'm in Rotorua for 2 nights and a planned CITO tomorrow by this C.O just south of here for the GC45 celebration and a bit of a clean up. I'm taking along the usual Gorby cafe and have a pile of caches on my list needed for various challenges I'm working on. Gorgeous day here today, so nice to have excellent weather after very wet miserable days up in Auckland recently. By the time I arrived here and started the walk, I was already concerned! It was 4:30pm and while it was bright enough out of the bush, it sure wasn't like that in the bush. Quite dark and how long will this take? When does the sun set? These questions I pondered on as I hastily started the walk. Got to the first wp (closest to the start of the walk) and made some observations, same again at the next wp then at the stated co-ords. Wow, this amazing geology alright, walking on the rim of a crater. The trees around the craters are lush and I had a good view looking down. Only problem I had was the sun was to my centre-left, and made for more difficult fotos, more or less shooting into the sun. If this had been a morning walk, the fotos would have been much better. I decided to get things done and head back the way I came, as it was the sun did set behind the hills and I got back in the nick of time. It took me 49 minutes there and back, so not bad for me. The van was still there and not gone or muggled. Always a good thing. Thanks FMZ, really enjoy your EC's and have another FP to add to your collection...lol. Now that I'm the first to visit here in 2023 we'll see if the next visitors arrive in 2024. Seems to be the pattern.

The answers have been sent to the CO. We really enjoyed this walk, the interesting geological information in the description and the questions. A cold day but the promised rain stayed away and we had a lovely bush walk. Thanks for setting up this earthcache.

Inspired after seeing this on Georick's cache walks I was thrilled to have time to do this walk this weekend. Such a beautiful walk and a very interesting earthcache. Thank you for sharing this spot.

Really enjoyed the walk to the twin craters. Great trees and ferns in the forest here. Vertical drops along the crater edges made for nice views down to the lakes. Favourite from us. Thanks FMZ.

I'm not sure how I feel about this earthcache. Living in Tauranga, we would be on the edge of the ashfall zone and would suffer considerable damage if this area were to erupt. But it's been a great bushwalk and the views of the crater lakes are truly awe-inspiring. I'll e-mail the answers later but, for now, here's me at GZ (hopefully only in a geocaching and not geothermal sense).

We loved this beautiful walk today, seeing beautiful crater lakes. Hopefully we have made intelligent responses, but we certainly did learn a lot. The excellent track showed off the native bush and accompanying birdsong. Thanks so much for taking us here. Photo coming later.

Touring New Zealand in Janene our Jucy van and today we found ourselves white water rafting not far from here

On the way back to Rotarua where we are staying with friends tonight I managed to persuade the driving muggle that he wanted to see some volcanic craters.

He was wearing flip flops and I was wearing sketchers, neither is really appropriate!!!

Anyway it was definitely worth the walk, the craters are quite spectacular. We discussed answers and have sent them off to the CO. FP from me and TFTC

This was our first visit to this area ... we did the track anticlockwise ... which turned out to be a good decision as we got the muddy part over and done with at the beginning.
We enjoyed the walk very much indeed, with **great views** down onto the 2 lakes. Many thanks for your efforts in setting up this **Earthcache**.

Awesome walk. Will return with my kids. Nice to be here and not be a tag along hunter. Using my phone for this one so took a pick of my fitbit with the date

Today I drove around Lake Rotorua, collecting some Virtuals and some Earthcaches, that I got addicted to, as the CO might know from looking at his inbox. Back home EarthCaches are mainly about coal and the like, but here they lead you from one awesome feature to another. So also this one - a nice walkway with amazing views and the best of all: there was noone around! Hadn't had this for quite a while and hence enjoyed this little walk very much.
Answers were a bit tricky with my limited English, but I hope they fit.
Thank you for another interesting EarthCache!

An outing to Lake Okataina to the CANZ cache for the long-term challenge, walk to Koutu Peninsula for the history and stroll these impressive craters for the geology - a perfect afternoon! Read the geology guidebooks thoroughly, looked at the GNS map and learnt a lot as we answered the questions. Thanks for the fun FMZ! Answers sent.

For our first day off in Rotorua, Ninalila and I went for a walk in the bush and around a few lakes to discover the backcountry of this region.
It was a nice walk with no one around, it was really quiet so we could enjoy the view and take our time to gather clues for the earthcache
It is funny to see the small differences between the lakes, even if they are closed to each others.

Thank you a lot for the earthcache and the discovery.

fefe.adrien and I have visited some places around lakes for our first day in Rotorua.
We made a detour to see these crater lakes and answer to this earthcache.
It was quite interesting ! Sadly that we could not go closer to the lake.

Thank you for the discovery

After whitewater rafting the Kaituna River with its 7m Tutea Falls we decided to spend the evening walking the close by Okataina Craters Trail. TFTC

We made a quick dash over to pick this Earth Cache up. What a awesome walk up through the podcast.We will be back to walk the circuit. TFTC

This entry was edited by Frewilys on Sunday, 11 October 2015 at 08:16:24 UTC.

This entry was edited by Frewilys on Sunday, 11 October 2015 at 08:30:22 UTC.

Woohoo thank you for taking us on a journey to these beautiful lakes.we had to duck under one tree and over another also another tree had fallen down so that little bit of track was wrecked otherwise a great track.

Decided to make this Sunday an active one. "Grabbed" this cache with the family on a drizzly morning but the views are worth it. Piccy is of an amazing fungi found on the walk. We are locals but I had not seem this part of our piece of God's own. Tftc

What a cold but beautiful day to explore the Rotorua area.
Even better when you have caches along your planned route.
TFTC

This is my last full day in Rotorua and have met up with another NZMCA member who was at a bit of a loose end so I suggested that he come caching with me, he agreed. So it off towards the Northeast area of Rotorua.

After yesterdays massive hike I was taken the trip into the cache a little slowly. Very impressive craters with lakes.

Cheers for the cache.

TFTC a good reason to show the other half these two lakes that I haven't visited for many years.
Please note everyone that it isn't really a pram friendly track, haha, just as well there were two of us

Took my partner and daughter up for the hike. Beautiful scenery, a nice easy walk surprisingly, and a picnic at the top of the mountain overlooking Lake Rotoatua. Was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon indeed. Thank you for bringing us to a location we otherwise never would have visited!

We were passing through the Rotorua area today and made a side trip to visit Lake Okataina for the CANZ cache and to do do this earthcache. A very enjoyable walk through the native forest and great views of the rather impressive craters. Thanks for another informative earthcache, that once again increased our knowledge.

I and bubblezone spent a nice time in new zealand. the most beautiful places we found with geocaching.
thank you for the cache!

on this hot summerday it was wonderful cool in the forest, so we enjoyed our walk and liked the view down to the crater lakes a lot. sfabrikg and me took many pictures today and that's why the walk took us quite a while

many thanks for putting up this earth cache - we certainly wouldn't have found and visited this place without you!

What a lovely walk to this site. Enjoyed doing this one. Thanks for bringing me here.

31/08/14 12:25 Last bit of information retrieved at WP3. A great exercise, the Earthcache I needed for the August Geocaching Challenge being the excuse to visit the craters that, despite being out in the area on & off since pre-teen days, I'd never visited. Thanks for setting this up, FMZ. Cheers, GC.

A pleasant afternoon walk after getting a FTF on the nearby Tarawhai track. I've been meaning to do this earth cache for a while now but just haven't found the time to do so. My iPhone had an accuracy of 2.8km on most of the track for some reason however the viewing platforms were very clear. I walked the loop very peaceful here today with the wind blowing through the trees very steep climb at beginning up to first viewpoint then it was a nice walk to wpt3 and downhill hill back to the car. I will email answers once I get home. Thanks Funky Monkey Zone.

Many thanks for this awesome cache. The walk was gorgeous and it is just stunning to see all the volcanic activity! We enjoyed our travel with so many different breathtaking moments.
Thanks for guiding us to this place

Greetings from Germany

I remember doing this walk as a kid but nicer to visit it again with some info as to what we were looking at. Always nice to learn a little more about the world we live in. Email sent. TFTC

Together with Geparderna we took a walk up to this craters. It was a nice walk and it was interresting to see the crater lakes.

Thanks for showing us this Place and greetings from Sweden.

Together with Busther we are on a visit in New Zeeland where we have attended the Auckland MEGA and now are doing some turisting and some geocaching while we are going south.

We had now spent some days in Rotorua and was looking for intresting places around the lake. We found this intesting place and stoped took a walk and found the nice views over the cratets.

We really injoyed the walk in the forrest up to the crater view. Thanks for showing this place.

Thanks for this cache and greeetings from Sweden.

Good to have a reason to go for a run in a different location. always love this hidden bit of forest. TFTC

Had an amazing walk around the craters. Will upload the photos shortly. A favourite from us.

I have logged this cache as part of 12-12-12: A Challenge? http://coord.info/GC42CNY

This entry was edited by 1066 on Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 07:45:15 UTC.

Had a great walk around here as Mrs Dragon and I headed over to Whakatane to go out to White Island. Interesting eruptive history of the area that also happened to tie in well with what our guides the following day told up about the area in general.

Thanks for putting this together and bringing me here
TFT Earthcache

It was raining when we left Rotorua but luckily the sky had cleared and the sun was out by the time we arrived in the carpark. As we entered the bush the temperature dropped but it was an enjoyable walk and nice to see all the shades of green after seeing so much brown on our recent travels. If it weren't for caching this is another track we would never have visited. Logged with permission TFTC.

Answers sent to CO.

I'd actually done that walk before, but had to come back because now there's a cache here! Nice hot day today, great stroll, the dog enjoyed it too... I did this cache as part of my 12-12-12 Challenge .

Earth Cache Day so it had to be done!!
Beautiful pristine area of our world and a very pleasant walk with the Grey Warblers singing to us all along the way.
Thank you for bring us back here after many years!

Great walk in beautiful surroundings and excellent track - Thanks for all in info and bringing me here. Answers emailed TFTEC

Logging with permission.
Did the run around the "classroom" for this lesson in Geology, came up with our own answers backed with scientific research evidence and got the green tick to log.
While not our favourite cache types we did enjoy researching this one, Thanks Chris for setting this one up while Vera did the real excercise!!
Did this one in conjunction with placing the new CANZ (Bay of Plenty) cache down the road.

A good stroll- was a little surprised that DoC hadn't got around to an interpretation sign or two.

Great walk, the kids loved the walk

Published

FTF... Yay Me!

Fog clung to the tree tops on the track into the cache. The walk was easy and the reward was seeing down into the depths of the craters. I've always wanted to do this track, after it was listed as one of New Zealand's great short walks. Now I've done it... Well worth the effort, even though the weather was a bit rough.

TFTEC FMZ

This entry was edited by squirrel nutcase on Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 01:21:44 UTC.

This entry was edited by squirrel nutcase on Thursday, 07 June 2012 at 01:22:23 UTC.