What its like to walk to Tama Lakes Tongariro 

The Tama Lakes walk was far easier than I was expecting.  While it is a long way to walk at 17.6km return, there is only around 300m of elevation difference between the start of the trail and the terminus at the Upper Tama Lakes.

The Tama Lakes Track also incorporates the Taranaki Falls trail so you can make this a bit of a loop track to mix it up.  We started on the Upper Taranaki Falls trail, headed out to Upper Tama Lakes and headed back past Taranaki Falls and out the lower falls track.  Then we just headed back up the road to finish.  So let’s dive into it and show you a bit more what it was really like.

The Upper Taranaki Falls track starts at a little carpark in Whakapapa Visit.  The majority of this track is extremely exposed so while the track itself isn’t difficult, the weather conditions will need to be favourable on this walk.

We purposely drove all the way to National Park for this particular walk and the one fine day on the weather forecast for a week and I have to say, we nailed it and it was absolutely worth it.  We visited at the beginning of October, so mid Spring and the forecast was for 2-8C that day (and increase from the original forecast of 0-4C)

The first part of the Tama Lakes hike is incredibly easy, following the boardwalks and gravel path.  It starts in a little bit of bush, but that doesn’t last for very long.  You will head towards Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings)  There’s some undulating tussock country but the walk itself from here feels pretty flat.

It took us around an hour to reach the crossroads where you turn left to head down to Taranaki Falls (saving that bit for later) and right to head up to the Tama Lakes.  There is a good little climb here and we stopped for a morning tea break on the hill before continuing.

This is probably the only real climb which isn’t really too difficult before the final climb to the Upper Lakes.  I was surprised how flat it was and any minor undulations were gradual.  There’s lots of boardwalks and you can really put a pace on during these kilometres to make some gain.  8.8km is a decent distance, but the time seems to pass without us knowing it.

There is a toilet stop at the turn off to the Tama Lakes.  It’s quite camouflaged which I appreciate.  The other option is to continue Waihohonu hut which is part of the Tongariro Northern Circuit Track, a New Zealand Great Walk

Then it’s actually not too far before you reach the Lower Tama Lakes.  Hiking the Tama Lakes Track with kids, it took us just under 2.5 hours to reach the Lower Lakes which were quite beautiful.  There were some information panels about the volcanic area and the lakes.  We took a couple of photos here, but the real viewpoints were on the way up.

This is where the real climbing will begin, but don’t worry, it doesn’t actually take too long.  It’s not too difficult for navigation as there are marker poles along the way and then you follow the ridgeline to the top.

With some photo breaks along the way, it only took us 30-40 minutes to meander to the top and it is totally worth it.  Unless its full covered in cloud and you know there will be no views, you don’t want to skip the final push to Upper Tama Lakes.

The hill is quite steep and there is scree (lots of loose stones on a mountain) on a good section of it but just work your way up there slowly.  If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll know that I love a good ridgeline and there’s honestly nothing better than walking along the tops of the mountain.

With all the stops along the way the walk to Upper Tama Lakes took us 3 hours and 15 minutes which I think was pretty good for our crew.  My 6 year old hiked the whole 17.6km so did a great job.