| Havelock River | |
|---|---|
  Location of the mouth within New Zealand | |
| Location | |
| Country | New Zealand |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| ⁃ location | Southern Alps |
| Mouth | |
⁃ location | Rangitata River |
The Havelock River is a river of New Zealand. The river source is in the Cloudy Peak Range, part of the Southern Alps, between Sceptre Peak and Outram Peak. It joins the Rangitata River which flows into the Canterbury Bight between Ashburton and Temuka. [1]
New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.
The Rangitata River is one of the braided rivers that helped form the Canterbury Plains in southern New Zealand. It flows southeast for 120 kilometres (75 mi) from the Southern Alps, entering the Pacific Ocean 30 kilometres (19 mi) northeast of Timaru. The river has a catchment area of 1,773 square kilometres (685 sq mi), and a mean annual flow of 95 cubic metres per second (3,400 cu ft/s) at Klondyke.
Canterbury Bight is a 135 kilometres (84 mi) stretch of coastline between Dashing Rocks and the southern side of Banks Peninsula on the eastern side of the South Island, New Zealand. The bight faces southeast, which exposes it to high-energy storm waves originating in the Pacific Ocean. The most frequent wave approach direction for the Canterbury Bight is from the southeast and the most dominant the south with wave heights of over 2m common. The bight is a large, gently curving bend of shoreline of primarily mixed sand and gravel (MSG) beaches. The MSG beaches are steep, highly reflective and composed of alluvial gravel deposits. The alluvial gravels are the outwash products of multiple glaciations that occurred in the Southern Alps during the Pleistocene. Large braided rivers transported this material to the edge of the current continental shelf, which, due to sea level rise is 50 km seaward of the coasts current position. The MSG beaches of the Canterbury Bight therefore occur where the alluvial fans of the Canterbury Plains rivers are exposed to high-energy ocean swells. The dominant rock ‘greywacke’ in the Southern Alps is consequently the primary constituent of the MSG beaches, which is partially indurated sandstone of the Torlesse Supergroup. River-mouth lagoons are a relatively common occurrence on the MSG beaches of the Canterbury Bight.
The river was named by Sir Julius von Haast on 12 March 1861 after Sir Henry Havelock, a British general. [2]
Sir Johann Franz Julius von Haast, known as Julius Haast and later as Julius von Haast, was a German geologist. He founded Canterbury Museum at Christchurch, New Zealand.
Major General Sir Henry Havelock KCB was a British general who is particularly associated with India and his recapture of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
