Lake Ora, just out of Kamo, was traditionally known as Lake Oara, meaning cooking.� The lake was a rich source of food in the late 1890s, when it was named.

Mrs Elizabeth Pepene, whose husband is a descendant of early Maori who fished from the lake, tells this story:� \"In the old days people used to camp for a week there, eeling.� The menfolk would stay all day catching and drying eels while the women went to Kamo shopping.� The lake was half full in the summer and the men used to go in up to their thighs in thick mud and eels.� Eel would go out by the sackful.\"