Archway Islands | |
|---|---|
islands | |
 two of the Archway Islands | |
  Archway Islands | |
| Coordinates: 40°29′56″S172°40′34″E / 40.499°S 172.676°E | |
| Location | Tasman District, New Zealand |
| Offshore water bodies | Tasman Sea |
The Archway Islands are a group of four rock stacks or small islands in New Zealand. The islands are located in Tasman District's Golden Bay / Mohua at Wharariki Beach.
The Archway Islands are located just west of the northernmost point of the South Island, Cape Farewell, and at the end of Wharariki Road. West of here, there are only walking tracks along the coast. [1] It takes 20 minutes one way to walk from the car park at the end of Wharariki Road to Wharariki Beach. [2] The Wharariki car park can be reached from Collingwood via Pūponga, where the road turns and becomes Wharariki Road. [3]
The name Archway Islands was formalised and gazetted on 14 November 2013, when the New Zealand Geographic Board made 133 place names official. [4]
The four islands are small, with even the largest one of them measuring only about 300 by 200 metres (980 by 660 ft). [5]
The largest of the islands is closest to the mainland and adjoins Wharariki Beach; it is generally not cut off by the sea. The second island lies about 150 metres (490 ft) offshore and is relatively flat and vegetated. The remaining two islands are typical rock stacks, with the larger one 66 metres (217 ft) tall and containing two natural rock arches, giving rise to the naming of the group of islands. [5]
The islands came to international prominence in mid-2015 when Microsoft released the Windows 10 operating system, which included a photo of the islands as one of the lock screen images. When Tasman District Council rolled out Windows 10, council staff thought that their IT department had installed a photo of the Archway Islands as a lock screen. It was only after some time that they realised that instead, Microsoft had chosen the image. [3]
The adjacent beach is popular for its colony of fur seal pups; during low tide, people have access to the pools where pups play in front of the easternmost of the Archway Islands. [3]
Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, as of 2014, is listed as 3,724 metres. It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki / Mount Cook consists of three summits: from south to north, the Low Peak, the Middle Peak and the High Peak. The summits lie slightly south and east of the main divide of the Southern Alps, with the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the southwest. Mount Cook is ranked 10th in the world by topographic isolation.
Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park is a national park located in the central-west of the South Island of New Zealand. It was established in October 1953 and takes its name from the highest mountain in New Zealand, Aoraki / Mount Cook. The area of the park is 707 km2 (273 sq mi), and it shares a border with Westland Tai Poutini National Park along the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. The national park consists of reserves that were established as early as 1885 to protect the area's significant landscape and vegetation. Glaciers cover 40% of the park, including the county's largest glacier, Haupapa / Tasman Glacier. In 1990, the park was included in the area designated as the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Site. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) alongside Ngāi Tahu, the iwi who are mana whenua in the region.
Tasman District is a local government district in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It borders the Canterbury Region, West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and Nelson City. It is administered by the Tasman District Council, a unitary authority, which sits at Richmond, with community boards serving outlying communities in Motueka and Golden Bay / Mohua. The city of Nelson has its own unitary authority separate from Tasman District, and together they comprise a single region in some contexts, but not for local government functions or resource management (planning) functions.
Farewell Spit is a narrow sand spit at the northern end of the Golden Bay, in the South Island of New Zealand. The spit includes around 25 km (16 mi) of stable land and another 5 km (3.1 mi) of mobile sand spit running eastwards from Cape Farewell, the northern-most point of the South Island. Farewell Spit is the longest sand spit in New Zealand, and is a legally protected Nature Reserve. The area is designated as a Ramsar wetland site and an East Asian–Australasian Flyway Shorebird Network site. Farewell Spit is administered by the Department of Conservation as a seabird and wildlife reserve. Apart from a small area at the base of the spit, it is closed to the public except through organised tours. Conservation initiatives are in progress towards eliminating mammalian predators from Farewell Spit, including a proposal for a predator-proof fence.
Tasman Glacier is the largest glacier in New Zealand, and one of several large glaciers which flow south and east towards the Mackenzie Basin from the Southern Alps in New Zealand's South Island.
Secretary Island is an island in southwestern New Zealand, lying entirely within Fiordland National Park. Roughly triangular in shape, it lies between Doubtful Sound / Patea in the south and Te Awa-o-Tū / Thompson Sound in the north, with its west coast facing the Tasman Sea. To the east of the island, Pendulo Reach connects Te Awa-o-Tū / Thompson Sound with Doubtful Sound / Patea. Steeply sloped, the entirely bush-clad island rises to a chain of several peaks higher than 1000 metres. The highest of these is the 1,196-metre (3,924 ft) Mount Grono, the highest peak in the main New Zealand chain not located in the North or South Island. The island also contains three lakes. The largest, Secretary Lake, over 600 metres (2,000 ft) long, is located beneath Mount Grono at an altitude of 550 metres (1,800 ft).
The Hooker River is a river in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. It flows south from Hooker Lake, the glacier lake of Hooker Glacier, which lies on the southern slopes of Aoraki / Mount Cook. After 3 kilometers, it flows through Mueller Glacier Lake, gathering more glacial water, before joining the braided streams of the Tasman River, also an outflow of a glacier lake.
The Waitangitāhuna River are two rivers in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. It was a single river until an avulsion in March 1967, when it became two rivers. Since then, the southern portion of the river has flowed into Lake Wahapo, while the northern section discharges into the Tasman Sea north of Ōkārito Lagoon.
The Stanley River is a river of the Tasman Region of New Zealand's South Island. It flows southeast from its sources in the Douglas and Anatoki Ranges, reaching the Waingaro River 12 kilometres west of Upper Takaka.
Golden Bay / Mohua is a large shallow bay in New Zealand's Tasman District, near the northern tip of the South Island. An arm of the Tasman Sea, the bay lies northwest of Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere and Cook Strait. It is protected in the north by Farewell Spit, a 26 km long arm of fine golden sand that is the country's longest sandspit. The Aorere and Tākaka rivers are the major waterways to flow into the bay from the south and the west.
The Cobb Reservoir is a hydro storage lake fed by the Cobb River in the Tasman District of the South Island of New Zealand. The reservoir feeds the Cobb Power Station and is 819 metres (2,687 ft) above sea level but drops significantly with low rainfall. Cobb Reservoir is the highest hydro storage lake in New Zealand, and is entirely surrounded by Kahurangi National Park. The reservoir, dam, penstock and powerhouse are excluded from the national park.
Tonga Island is a small (0.15 km2) island in Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere, off the northern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It lies within the Abel Tasman National Park, about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) off Onetahuti Beach. The island has a flourishing fur seal colony, and is surrounded by the Tonga Island Marine Reserve, which was inaugurated in 1993.
Tata Islands are a pair of small uninhabited islands off the north coast of New Zealand's South Island. They are located some 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the northwest of Tākaka in the southeast of Golden Bay close to Abel Tasman Point, and are contained within Abel Tasman National Park. The small settlement of Tata Beach lies on the South Island mainland one kilometre to the south of the islands.
The tiny settlement of Pūponga in New Zealand is the northernmost settlement in the South Island. It is in the Tasman District, 18 kilometres (11 mi) north of Collingwood, at the foot of Farewell Spit. The spit's airstrip, Triangle Flat Airstrip is just northeast of Pūponga. The settlement of Pūponga is inland; the settlement located on the coast is called Port Pūponga.
Wharariki Beach is a beach on the Tasman Sea, west of Cape Farewell, the northernmost point of the South Island of New Zealand.
Rawhiti Cave, also known as Manson Cave, is a single large limestone cave in the hillside of the Dry Creek Valley 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) southeast of Tākaka on the South Island of New Zealand. It is referred to as Manson Cave in the NZ Topo Map, after owners in the early 20th century, however the cave is known as Rawhiti Cave locally, and on DoC information panels and in brochures.
Windows Spotlight is a feature included with Windows 10 and Windows 11 which downloads images and advertisements from Bing and displays them as background wallpapers on the lock screen. In 2017, Microsoft began adding location information for many of the photographs.
La Perouse, originally called Mount Stokes, is a mountain in New Zealand's Southern Alps, rising to a height of 3,078 metres (10,098 ft).
Wainui Bay is within Golden Bay / Mohua, and at the south-eastern end of Golden Bay, in the Tasman Region of the South Island, New Zealand.
Wharariki Ecosanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary within a predator-proof fence at Cape Farewell, New Zealand.
