| Waitahanui River | |
|---|---|
 Waitahanui River entering Lake Taupō | |
  Location of Waitahanui River in New Zealand | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Kaimanawa Ranges |
| Mouth | Lake Taupō |
• location | Waitahanui, New Zealand |
The Waitahanui River is a river in the North Island of New Zealand.
The Waitahanui River is one of the three main rivers that flow into Lake Taupō (the others being the Tongariro River and the Tauranga Taupō River). The Waitahanui flows out of the foothills of the Kaimanawa Ranges and is crossed by State Highway 1 as the river passes through the township of Waitahanui, before entering Lake Taupō.
The Waitahanui is a popular fishing stream. Rainbow trout run up the river in winter to spawn and brown trout enter the river in autumn. At times anglers stand shoulder to shoulder across the rivermouth, trying to catch trout as they move out of the lake, a formation nicknamed the 'Picket Fence'. [1]
Lake Taupō is a large crater lake in New Zealand's North Island, located in the caldera of Taupō Volcano. The lake is the namesake of the town of Taupō, which sits on a bay in the lake's northeastern shore. With a surface area of 616 km2 (238 sq mi), it is the largest lake by surface area in New Zealand, and the second largest freshwater lake by surface area in geopolitical Oceania after Lake Murray in Papua New Guinea. Motutaiko Island lies in the southeastern area of the lake.
Taupō, sometimes written Taupo, is a town located in the central North Island of New Zealand. It is situated on the edge of Lake Taupō, which is the largest freshwater lake in New Zealand. Taupō was constituted as a borough in 1953. It has been the seat of Taupō District Council since the council was formed in 1989.
The Waikato River is the longest river in New Zealand, running for 425 kilometres (264 mi) through the North Island. It rises on the eastern slopes of Mount Ruapehu, joining the Tongariro River system and flowing through Lake Taupō, New Zealand's largest lake. It then drains Taupō at the lake's northeastern edge, creates the Huka Falls, and flows northwest through the Waikato Plains. It empties into the Tasman Sea south of Auckland, at Port Waikato. It gives its name to the Waikato region that surrounds the Waikato Plains. The present course of the river was largely formed about 17,000 years ago. Contributing factors were climate warming, forest being reestablished in the river headwaters and the deepening, rather than widening, of the existing river channel. The channel was gradually eroded as far up river as Piarere, leaving the old Hinuera channel through the Hinuera Gap high and dry. The remains of the old course are seen clearly at Hinuera, where the cliffs mark the ancient river edges. The Waikato's main tributary is the Waipā River, which converges with it at Ngāruawāhia.
The Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ) is a volcanic area in the North Island of New Zealand that has been active for at least the past two million years and is still highly active. Mount Ruapehu marks its south-western end and the zone runs north-eastward through the Taupō and Rotorua areas and offshore into the Bay of Plenty. It is part of the larger Central Volcanic Region that extends further westward through the western Bay of Plenty to the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula and has been active for four million years. At Taupō the rift volcanic zone is widening east–west at the rate of about 8 mm per year while at Mount Ruapehu it is only 2–4 mm per year but this increases at the north eastern end at the Bay of Plenty coast to 10–15 mm per year. It is named after Lake Taupō, the flooded caldera of the largest volcano in the zone, the Taupō Volcano and contains a large central volcanic plateau as well as other landforms associated with its containing tectonic intra-arc continental Taupō Rift.
Tūrangi is a small town on the west bank of the Tongariro River, 50 kilometres south-west of Taupō on the North Island Volcanic Plateau of New Zealand. It was built to accommodate the workers associated with the Tongariro hydro-electric power development project and their families. The town was designed to remain as a small servicing centre for the exotic forest plantations south of Lake Taupō and for tourists. It is well known for its trout fishing and calls itself "The trout fishing capital of the world". The major Māori hapū (tribe) of the Tūrangi area is Ngāti Tūrangitukua.
Lake Rotorua is the second largest lake in the North Island of New Zealand by surface area, and covers 79.8 km2. With a mean depth of only 10 metres it is considerably smaller than nearby Lake Tarawera in terms of volume of water. It is located within the Rotorua Caldera in the Bay of Plenty Region.
The Kaituna River is in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is the outflow from Lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti, and flows northwards for 45 kilometres (28 mi), emptying into the Bay of Plenty near Te Puke. It was the subject of a claim concerning the effluent flowing down the river from Lake Rotorua, which resulted in movement to a land treatment system.
The Tarawera River is in the Bay of Plenty Region in the North Island of New Zealand.
The North Island Volcanic Plateau is a volcanic plateau covering much of central North Island of New Zealand with volcanoes, lava plateaus, and crater lakes. It contains the Taupō caldera complex, Ōkataina caldera complex and Tongariro Volcanic Centre resulting in it being currently the most frequently active and productive area of silicic volcanism on Earth. New Zealand is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
The Tongariro River is a river in the North Island of New Zealand. The part of the Waikato River from the Waihohonu Stream, down to Lake Taupō, was formally named the Tongariro River in 1945. The river originates in the Central Plateau of the North Island where it is fed by numerous tributaries that flow off the surrounding hill ranges and mountains such as Mount Ruapehu. It then winds its way north, through the township of Turangi before entering Lake Taupō via a number of river mouths. The minimum volume of water flowing down the lower Tongariro River ranges from approximately 16 cubic metres per second (570 cu ft/s) to 21 cubic metres per second (740 cu ft/s). This volume can substantially increase due to catchment of rainfall by the surrounding mountains and hill ranges.
The Reporoa Caldera is a 10 km by 15 km caldera in New Zealand's Taupō Volcanic Zone located in the Taupō-Reporoa Basin. It formed some 280,000 years ago, in a large eruption that deposited approximately 100 km3 of tephra, forming the Kaingaroa Ignimbrite layer. The ignimbrite sheet extends up to 15 km (9.3 mi) to the east.
The Hatepe eruption, named for the Hatepe Plinian pumice tephra layer, sometimes referred to as the Taupō eruption or Horomatangi Reef Unit Y eruption, is dated to 232 CE ± 10 and was Taupō Volcano's most recent major eruption. It is thought to be New Zealand's largest eruption within the last 20,000 years. The eruption ejected some 45–105 km3 (11–25 cu mi) of bulk tephra, of which just over 30 km3 (7.2 cu mi) was ejected in approximately 6–7 minutes. This makes it one of the largest eruptions in the last 5,000 years, comparable to the Minoan eruption in the 2nd millennium BCE, the 946 eruption of Paektu Mountain, the 1257 eruption of Mount Samalas, and the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora.
The Hinemaiaia Stream is a river of the central North Island of New Zealand. It flows northwest from Kaimanawa Forest Park, flowing into the eastern shore of Lake Taupō at Hatepe, halfway between Taupō and Turangi. It is a popular Fly fishing stream with good numbers of Rainbow trout spawning in the winter months of June through to September.
The Mangorewa River is a river of the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island. It flows northeast from its sources on the Mamaku Plateau northwest of Lake Rotorua, reaching the Kaituna River close to the town of Paengaroa.
The Waiotaka River is a river of the Waikato Region of New Zealand's North Island. It flows northwest from its origins in the Kaimanawa Range to reach the southern shore of Lake Taupō 5 kilometres (3 mi) northeast of Turangi.
The Wairakei River or Wairakei Stream is a river of the Waikato Region of New Zealand's North Island. It flows southeast to meet the Waikato River, which it does at the town of Wairakei, 10 kilometres north of Taupō.
Lake Taupō, in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, fills the caldera of the Taupō Volcano, a large rhyolitic supervolcano. This huge volcano has produced two of the world's most powerful eruptions in geologically recent times.
The Aratiatia Rapids are an area of New Zealand river rapids downstream from the dam for the Aratiatia Power Station on the Waikato River. The rapids are extremely dangerous.
Otamarakau is a beach and community in the Western Bay of Plenty District and Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island, just south of Pukehina.
Waitahanui is a village in the Taupō District, Waikato region, New Zealand. The village is on the eastern shore of Lake Taupō, 14 km (9 mi) south of the district seat of Taupō.