The Awakino River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

located in the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It has been described as one of the great rivers in the North Island providing top-quality backcountry

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

Awakino Awakino is a settlement in the south of Waitomo District, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located on State Highway 3 at the mouth of the Awakino River, five kilometres north of Mokau. It is 79 km southwest of Te Kuiti, and 98&n ...

township lies on its river banks. It rises on peaks of up to in the

Herangi Range Herangi Range is a range of hills south of Marokopa and north of Awakino, in the Waikato region of New Zealand, reaching to the Tasman Sea at Tapirimoko, Tirua, Taungaururoa, Te Mauku and Ngarupupu Points. Just to the south of Ngarupupu, the Wai ...

and flows , initially southerly and then through Awakino Gorge in a south-westerly direction.

River route

The river rises in the rugged bush country of the

King Country The King Country (Māori: ''Te Rohe Pōtae'' or ''Rohe Pōtae o Maniapoto'') is a region of the western North Island of New Zealand. It extends approximately from the Kawhia Harbour and the town of Otorohanga in the north to the upper reaches of ...

and flows south via the settlement of Mahoenui from where it runs alongside State Highway 3 to the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...

References

Waitomo District Rivers of Waikato Rivers of New Zealand {{Waikato-river-stub