Lake Mahinerangi is a small lake formed when a dam was built on the Waipori River for hydroelectric generation.
The Waipori hydro-electric scheme includes a network of four dams and power stations and produces a maximum output of 84 MW.
The lake itself, was named after Olive Mahinerangi Barnett, the daughter of William Barnett, mayor of Dunedin 1911-1912
You may be wondering why there are two caches within a short distance of each other, with the same name and basically the same description. Essentially the two cache owners, GenCuster and Guwapo, had the same idea at the same time. Rather than restrict one of us to have the place to ourselves we worked together to allow both caches to be published within the guidelines.
Power to the people
This cache replaces the archived Dam It cache.
The cache is located on a 'tourist' route (if said tourist is a cacher) that includes several interesting walks and other places of interest on the hydro-electric scheme path.
The tributaries of the Waipori River are in the Lammerlaw Range. The river descends gradually until the Waipori Gorge, where it suddenly drops 222 metres in approximately 4,000 metres. Which makes the gorge an ideal site for a hydro-electric scheme.
Lake Mahinerangi was formed by a 20.4 metre high dam, with work beginning in 1927 and completed in 1931, with a powerhouse of 3,000 kW capacity. The new lake submerged the mining township of Waipori left">and mining interests had actively opposed the building of the dam as Waipori Flat was still being actively mined. In 1920, the Dunedin City Corporation Empowering Act was successfully pushed through Parliament to enable the use of the Waipori River as a hydro-electric reservoir.
The Mahinerangi Dam was increased to its final height of 33.5 metres in 1946. By 1955, two more generating stations had been built downstream from the original powerhouse. There have been further replacements and additions to generating capacity between the 1960s and 1980s.
The cache itself is a 1 litre black Systema container. It contains logbook, pen & pencil and a few few swaps
The lake is available for swimming, boating and fishing, accessible from several points. Obviously these would be 'fair weather activities'.
Please Obey the Warning Signs near the Tunnel Intake
