Sunset at Lake Wanaka

“Lake Wanaka is located in the Otago region of New Zealand. It’s New Zealand’s fourth largest lake, and estimated to be more than 300 m (980 ft) deep. Its name is Māori, a corruption of Oanaka meaning ‘The place of Anaka’, a local tribal chief).

While Māori had long known of its existence, the first European to reach the lake is thought to have been Nathaniel Chalmers in 1853. Accompanied by Māoris, he walked from Tuturau (Southland) to the lake via the Kawarau River, later returning by a raft floating down the Clutha.

Around 1859, other explorers who were now mapping the area also found a ruined Māori village (destroyed in a tribal raid in 1836) in the Makarora Valley. In 1861, several new sheep stations had been established in around the south end of the lake, and in 1862, the lake itself was surveyed in a whaleboat. The early European name was Lake Pembroke.

Wanaka is a town on the lake with which it shares its name. The township is situated in a dramatic glacier carved basin on the shores of the lake and is the gateway to Mt Aspiring National Park. Wild and beautiful Lake Hawea is a 15 minute drive away, en-route to the frontier town of Makarora, the last stop before the West Coast Glacier region. To the south is the historic Cardrona Valley, offering a scenic alpine route to neighbouring Queenstown.

At its greatest extent, roughly along a north-south axis, the lake is 42 kilometres long. Its widest point, at the southern end, is 10 kilometres. The lake’s western shore is lined with high peaks rising to over 2000 metres above sea level.

Wanaka lies in a u-shaped valley formed by glacial erosion during the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago. It is fed by the Matukituki and Makarora Rivers, and is the source of the Clutha River. Nearby Lake Hawea lies in a parallel valley carved by a neighbouring glacier eight kilometres to the east. At their closest point (a rocky ridge called The Neck), the lakes are only 1,000 metres apart.”