The placid Lake Tutira and the 2km main track to the camping areas with is a pleasant walk in itself. Photo/Duncan Brown
Hawke's Bay has some historically colourful and intriguing spots to take a stroll. Roger
Moroney laced up the wandering boots to check out some of the Bay's walkways.
On the road voyage from Napier to Wairoa there lies, on the right as you head north on SH2, a place which (if there are children in the car) will result in you hearing, "ooh can we stop for a while?"
I daresay few do, as they aim for the sands of Mahia or beyond, while the south-bound travellers answer another question from their young passengers - "are we nearly there?"
But Tutira, this shining and placid lake, is well worth a stopover.
It is also (as many "get away from it all" pursuers and fresh-air wanderers will attest) a fine place for a day trip.
Many Hawke's Bay folk will know Lake Tutira as the home of a place called Guthrie-Smith.
It is a unique and picturesque arboretum, and education centre, and is spread over about 90 hectares of rolling hill country north - and of course overlooks Lake Tutira.
Naturalist, author and farmer Herbert Guthrie-Smith surveyed the region back in the 19th century and ran a huge sheep station there.
He effectively set up what we have today - he placed what he had achieved into a trust.
It is an easy drive (made memorable by the bends of the Devil's Elbow) from Napier of about 40 minutes. The turn-off into the reserve and subsequent camping sites and entries to a string of walkways (from easy to challenging) is modestly sign-posted.
But put it this way, the pointing sign with its camping symbol arrives about a minute after you first spot the placid lake so you're kind of ready for it.
One of the educational signs set up at the entrance reserve includes the line, "enjoy, explore, discover".
And plenty of campers, trampers and stopover visitors have done just that through the years.
For a stroll you can pretty well take your pick - from a 45 minute wander on the Lake Waikaporiro circuit (the smaller lake beside the big one) through to the Tutira Walkway, which rises to the Table Mountain trig station where the most stunning views are unveiled - although bear in mind it takes about five hours to complete the trek.
In between there is the Loop Track, which is a link of the Galbraith and Kahikanui Track and that's about four hours worth.
I initially embarked on an unlisted walk, and that was the 2km dirt track from the entrance, past the campsite where about a dozen temporary homes had sprung up at a fiver a night, and to the end of the trail, where the farm fences took over.
It is a lakeside wonder accompanied by nothing but whooshing tui, stirring leaves in towered trees and the lapping of gentle lakewaters.
It really is a pretty lake, and a pretty clean one too.
Crystal clear waters where the rainbow and brown trout are, one chap told me, flourishing.
You will not hear an engine on the lake as they are banned.
You use oars or a sail ... or you stay ashore.
At the end of the trail I parked up and clambered over a small stile of two or three steps and headed through some remarkable stands of cabbage trees and flax.
I heard something scuttle away behind me.
I crossed a couple of small wooden bridges over still streams, and all the while the birdlife went ballistic.
It was a wonder in the wilderness.
I returned and took the steps over the second, larger stile and headed across farmland on the Loop Track Walk on Galbraith's track - it takes about two hours to do the circuit.
You need good footwear as the tracks are shingle and small rocks abound.
Or you can walk the grass edges ... but be mindful that the sheep walk them too so you may need to wash them later (the shoes, not the sheep).
There are four walking trails, all signposted, so you can take your pick.
The views are as remarkable as the tranquillity is soothing.
For centuries, Maori seasonally lived by Lake Tutira and you can see the remains of six pa sites.
You will also see the remains of what was once a six-stand woolshed built in the late 1800s.
The land once housed up to 38,000 sheep and the woolshed was a busy place. All that remains now is a large block of very old concrete - once the base of one of the machines on site.
On a clear day you can pretty well see forever in this stunning part of the land, and taking a walk, be it challenging or simply quietly recreational, is a fine thing to be able to do.
Oh, and there's no admission fee.
I think the looks of satisfaction and delight on the faces of wanderers is payment enough for Mother Nature.