Nelson is a New Zealand city on the eastern shores of Tasman Bay at the top of the South Island. It is the oldest city in the South Island and the second-oldest settled city in New Zealand; it was established in 1841 and became a city by royal charter in 1858.
The South Island, also named Te Waipounamu in Māori, is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers 150,437 square kilometres (58,084 sq mi), making it the world's 12th-largest island, constituting 56% of New Zealand's land area. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate.
The Ahaura River is in the South Island of New Zealand. This river drains the western flanks of the Southern Alps and flows into the Grey River.
The Buller River is a river in the South Island of New Zealand. The Buller has the highest flow of any river in the country during floods, though it is only the 13th longest river; it runs for 177 km (110 mi) from Lake Rotoiti through the Buller Gorge and into the Tasman Sea near the town of Westport. A saddle at 710 m (2,330 ft) separates the Buller from the Motupiko River and that is divided from the Wairau River by a 695 m (2,280 ft) saddle, both aligned along the Alpine Fault, as is the top of the Buller valley.
Wānaka is a popular ski and summer resort town in the Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand. At the southern end of Lake Wānaka, it is at the start of the Clutha River and is the gateway to Mount Aspiring National Park.
Nelson Lakes National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand, at the northern end of the Southern Alps. It was created in 1956. The park contains beech forests, multiple lakes, snow-covered mountains and valleys created by glaciers during the ice ages.
Kahurangi National Park in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand is the second largest of the thirteen national parks of New Zealand. It was gazetted in 1996 and covers 5,193 km2 (2,005 sq mi), ranging from the Buller River near Murchison in the south, to the base of Farewell Spit in Golden Bay in the north. The park has no single dominant landform, but includes an unusually wide variety of landscapes, including mountain ranges, rivers, gorges, raised peneplains and karst features such as caves and arches. Many of the landforms within the park are considered to be nationally or internationally significant.
Murchison is a town in the Tasman Region of the South Island of New Zealand. It is near the western end of the "Four Rivers Plain", at the confluence of the Buller River and the Mātakitaki River. The other two rivers are the Mangles River, and the Matiri River. It is a rural service town for the surrounding mixed farming district, approximately halfway between Westport and Nelson. Murchison was named after the Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison, one of the founders of the Royal Geographical Society.
Motueka is a town in the South Island of New Zealand, close to the mouth of the Motueka River on the western shore of Tasman Bay. It is the second largest in the Tasman Region, with a population of 8,320 as of June 2023.
Lake Tekapo is the second-largest of three roughly parallel lakes running north–south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin in the South Island of New Zealand. It covers an area of 83 km2 (32 sq mi) and is at an altitude of 710 m (2,330 ft) above sea level.
The Matiri River is a river located in the northwest of New Zealand's South Island. The river is in the Tasman Region.
Tākaka is a small town situated at the southeastern end of Golden Bay, at the northern end of New Zealand's South Island, located on the lower reaches of the Tākaka River. State Highway 60 runs through Takaka and follows the river valley before climbing over Tākaka Hill, to Motueka linking Golden Bay with the more populated coast of Tasman Bay to the southeast. The town is served by Tākaka Aerodrome.
Richard Arnst or Dick Arnst, born Jacob Diedrich Arnst, was a New Zealand rower and cyclist. He won the Single Sculls World Championship six times during the early part of the 20th century.
James Patrick Hannan was the last of six New Zealand oarsman who attempted to win the World Sculling Championship title.
Golden Bay 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 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.
Hakatere Conservation Park is a protected area between the Rakaia River and the Rangitata River in the Ashburton District of New Zealand. The park was established in 2007. It covers 60,000 hectares of rugged mountains and mountain basins, tussocklands and beech forest. It includes the Ashburton Lakes, such as Lake Heron and Lake Clearwater, popular tramping area Mount Somers / Te Kiekie, and Mount Hutt skifield. The closest town is Mount Somers.
Susanna Wood is a New Zealand scientist whose research focuses on understanding, protecting and restoring New Zealand's freshwater environments. One of her particular areas of expertise is the ecology, toxin production, and impacts of toxic freshwater cyanobacteria in lakes and rivers. Wood is active in advocating for the incorporation of DNA-based tools such as metabarcoding, genomics and metagenomics for characterising and understanding aquatic ecosystems and investigating the climate and anthropogenic drivers of water quality change in New Zealand lakes. She has consulted for government departments and regional authorities and co-leads a nationwide programme Lakes380 that aims to obtain an overview of the health of New Zealand's lakes using paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Wood is a senior scientist at the Cawthron Institute. She has represented New Zealand internationally in cycling.
Lake Wahapo is a small glacial lake in South Westland, New Zealand, within the Westland Tai Poutini National Park and near the township of Whataroa. It was a traditional mahinga kai for local Māori. State Highway 6 skirts the lake's southern shore. The lake discharges to the Ōkārito River via a small hydroelectric power station commissioned in 1960. The ecology of the lake has altered considerably since 1967, when the Waitangitāhuna River changed course to flow into the lake.
Maniniaro / Angelus Peak is a mountain in Nelson Lakes National Park, near the northwestern extent of New Zealand's main divide. Although it is not the tallest peak in the Angelus Ridge or the wider Travers Range, Maniniaro remains a popular tramping destination and is significant to the Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō iwi, who claim mana whenua within the area. According to Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō beliefs, the mountain is intrinsically linked with nearby Rotomaninitua / Lake Angelus, with the two both said to represent the footprints of the iwi's ancestors as they embarked on their journey back to Hawaiki. It is also near both major lakes of the national park, being roughly 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the southern ends of both Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoroa.
