The Poolburn Gorge is a gorge located in the Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand, 4 km east of the small settlement of Lauder. The Ida Burn flows through the 2.5 km long canyon across the Raggedy Range between the Ida Valley and the Manuherikia Valley. There are no public roads through the gorge; only the track of the former Otago Central Railway, now used as the Otago Central Rail Trail, [1] follows the river on the southern flanks of the gorge.
Central Otago is located in the inland part of the Otago region in the South Island of New Zealand. The motto for the area is "A World of Difference".
The South Island, also officially named Te Waipounamu, 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. It has a temperate climate.
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.
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The landscape surrounding Poolburn Gorge is barren and dry, shaped by the typical Central Otago climate of dry hot summers and cold winters. The gorge cuts through schist rock bluffs, with the vegetation on the steep slopes consisting of tussock and hardy low-growing shrubs. Contrasting this, a ribbon of lush trees lines the immediate river banks at the bottom of the gorge. The Ida Burn joins the Manuherikia River shortly after it emerges from the Poolburn Gorge into the Manuherikia Valley.
Tussock grasslands form expansive and distinctive landscapes in the South Island and to a lesser extent in the central plateau region of the North Island of New Zealand. Most of the plants referred to as tussocks are in the genera Carex, Chionochloa, Festuca, and Poa.
The Manuherikia River is located in Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. It rises in the far north of the Maniototo, with the West Branch draining the eastern side of the St Bathans Range, and the East Branch draining the western flanks of the Hawkdun Range. The river continues southwest through the wide Manuherikia Valley to its confluence with the Clutha River at Alexandra. During the 1860s the Manuherikia was one of the centres of the Central Otago Gold Rush.
The Pool Burn was known to southern Māori as Te Waipapapa o Karetai - the water container of Karetai, a Ngāi Tahu chief. [2]
The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from eastern Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages some time between 1250 and 1300. Over several centuries in isolation, the Polynesian settlers developed a unique culture, with their own language, a rich mythology, and distinctive crafts and performing arts. Early Māori formed tribal groups based on eastern Polynesian social customs and organisation. Horticulture flourished using plants they introduced; later, a prominent warrior culture emerged.
Ngāi Tahu, or Kāi Tahu, is the principal Māori iwi (tribe) of the southern region of New Zealand. Its takiwā is the largest in New Zealand, and extends from Blenheim, Mount Mahanga and Kahurangi Point in the north to Stewart Island in the south. The takiwā comprises 18 rūnanga corresponding to traditional settlements.
