The main lake is quiet - no jetboaters out today, but a family is out kayaking serenely on the smaller lake surrounded by wetlands and native plantings.
Lake Braemore is the culmination of an almost 10-year project led by Wairarapa sheep and beef farmer Len French.
“Not a single part of the process was easy,” he told RNZ’s Country Life.
Despite the challenges, French is proud to have persevered in developing the man-made lake, which provides water storage for his farm and a recreational asset for the wider community.
French was looking to develop some water storage on-farm when an opportunity came up to purchase a neighbouring block with the perfect topography to build a small dam.
Lake Braemore is an artificially constructed lake covering about 13ha at a depth of about 10 metres.
It holds up to 750,000 cubic metres of water, of which French can use 600,000 for irrigation.
It took eight years for the project to get to this stage, though, where he can draw from the lake and where members of the public can come and enjoy it as a recreational facility.
The holdup came from an existing wetland where French was looking to build.
“There was a wetland in there, which, despite everyone checking it out, was not significant in any way,” he said.
“It was only a very small area, almost a backwater.”
The "facility" consists of a total of 25ha of land and includes the main lake area along with other wetland areas. Photo / Gianina Schwanecke, RNZ, Country Life
However, under recent regional planning changes, farmers were no longer allowed to drain wetland areas.
Wetlands are considered among the most threatened ecosystems in New Zealand, with nearly 90% of Aotearoa’s wetlands having been lost over the past 100 years.
The Greater Wellington Regional Council estimates there are are only around 3% of wetlands in the region remaining.
French described working through these rules as “frustrating”.
“It was just a matter of working through the regulations and finding a way to do it.
Lake Braemore in Wairarapa was built primarily as a water storage facility for farm irrigation purposes, but is also open to the public for water sports and recreational use. Photo / Gianina Schwanecke, RNZ, Country Life
“We have the wetlands areas established as part of the consents process.
“We had a wetland that was flooded by the whole construction of the dam, so these wetlands have been built to offset that.”
French spent $400,000 before even building the dam on resource and building consents, which took four years to be granted.
He confessed to having considered throwing in the towel but is pleased to have persisted.
In total, the project cost $2.5 million, including $150,000 worth of plantings.
“It sounds expensive, but it actually is very cheap when you compare it to other ones.
“It’s by far one of the cheapest irrigation dams built around.”
New wetland areas have also been developed as part of the project and have seen thousands of native plants go in. Photo / Gianina Schwanecke, RNZ, Country Life
French felt there was more opportunity for water storage projects these days, especially with increasingly extreme weather patterns.
“We have so much water available to us, but we don’t use it.
“When you see the shortage of water around the world, you’ve got to start realising we have a unique advantage here.”
This is the first full year where he’s irrigated, something which helped give him “peace of mind” when Wairarapa conditions were dry during November and December.
Lake Braemore offers new recreational opportunities for those like the Jackson-Fry family enjoying the kayaks. Photo / Gianina Schwanecke, RNZ, Country Life
It has also given him options to look at other alternative income sources, moving from cropping to more intensive seed production.
“Just the ability to grow some of those higher value crops are some of the options it’s opening up to us.”
The lake is filled from water that runs down from the hill country catchment surrounding it, passing through the wetland plantings where it is filtered.
The newly formed wetlands are still establishing and in a year’s time will be at their full water capacity.
They’re surrounded by several walking tracks, which French enjoys seeing people use.
