The Sensational South Island by Mary Jane Walker

Author:Mary Jane Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Maverick Traveller Ltd

Local Tourism App

My Little Local Dunedin

Blog Posts with More Images

a-maverick.com/blog/dunedin-and-the-taieri-gorge-railway

a-maverick.com/blog/sounding-out-dunedin

a-maverick.com/blog/dunedins-town-belt-olveston-house-backtrack-mt-cargill

TOUR 5: Aoraki and the Canterbury Lakes

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Canterbury Surprise: The Foothills of the Alps

To the West: The Ashburton Lakes (and Mountains)

I

N the Ō Tū Wharekai/Ashburton Lakes district southwest of Christchurch, Mount Guy (1 319 m/4,327 feet) and the chilly Lake Clearwater (667 m/2,188 feet) are in the middle of a nexus of tracks, with several other lakes and peaks nearby.

DOC describes the area, with its twelve smallish lakes and the headwaters of the Rangitata River and damp hollows in the ground called kettle-holes, left by melting blocks of ice, as a nationally significant intermontane (between-mountains) wetland system.

Whence the name Ō Tū Wharekai, which builds on the word for banquet hall or dining room (wharekai) and refers to the fact that the wetlands in this area were an important source of food in earlier times. The area is also one through which people used to travel on the way to gather pounamu on the West Coast, stocking up on food as they did so.

Today, you can camp by the lakes, as I did recently, and spend your time doing several day-walks including the Mount Somers Circuit.

The Te Araroa Trail, New Zealand’s long trail, runs through this area.

You are also close to Erewhon, the setting of the English writer Samuel Butler’s fictional utopia Erewhon, but also an actual place.

See the DOC page ‘Lake Clearwater tracks’

Driving from Christchurch to Lake Clearwater via the Inland Scenic Route, you can also stop off at:

Washpen Falls. This is a privately-owned locality on a private track through a scenic gorge. It’s very highly rated by ‘glampers’, but basic access only costs NZ $10 for adults, on washpenfalls.co.nz. The private website notes that Washpen Falls has featured as a Hollywood filming location.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.