Lake Hayes

Lake Hayes is a small lake in the Wakatipu Basin in Central Otago on the South Island of New Zealand. It is located near the villages of Arrowtown and Queenstown. State Highway 6 runs along its south side.

The lake was originally called Hays Lake to the Australian D. Hay, who came in search of land in 1859 for sheep farming in the area. Later the name came to Lake Hayes, since his discovery was attributed by mistake to a local original called Captain "Bully" Hayes.

The lake suffered since 2006, algal blooms by the local alga Ceratium hirundinella, the colored water to be brown. In 2009 there were no more algae blooms, scientists attribute this to the occurrence of non-indigenous in New Zealand water flea Daphnia pulex in the lake.