State Highway 75 to Akaroa and the Little River Rail Trail run along the north-western side of the lake.

[2] The Wairewa Rūnanga has created an outlet canal that is occasionally opened to the sea when there is a risk of flooding due to heavy rain.

[5] Up until a few thousand years ago it was an embayment in the Canterbury Bight, fully exposed to the fury of southerly waves.

The spit, grew steadily, until it ran into Banks Peninsula and could grow no more, but the sand and sediment kept coming.

[7] Within perhaps a further 1000 years, the barrier barred the mouth of the bay turning it into an estuary, where tidal waters could still go in and out.