The New Zealand Site

Nelson Lakes National Park is in the South Island at the northern end of the Southern Alps, about 80km south of Nelson, and about one and a half hours by car from Nelson or Blenheim, or 5 hours from Christchurch. It’s an area of stunning glacier-carved natural beauty and offers great tramping.

Nelson Lakes Map

The Alpine Fault that has created the Southern Alps is a result of the Indo-Australian tectonic plate grinding northwards along the edge of the Pacific plate (and vice versa) and it runs pretty much through the middle of the park. The rocks in the northwest part were joined to Fiordland (480 km to the south) about 10 million years ago and they’re still moving, albeit extremely slowly, pushing up mountains and ranges as they travel.

Lake Valley Geology

During the last ice age (around 12,000 years ago) glaciers carved the ranges into the classic scenery of broad, steep-sided valleys with long lakes, sharp ridgelines and rounded alpine basins and tarns.

The valleys are now covered mainly in beech forest, ranging from predominantly red beech on the valley floors to mountain beech on the higher slopes, with tussock, herbfields and alpine plants on the tops.

The National Park covers about 102,000 hectares of mountain ranges, valleys and the two main lakes; Rotoiti and Rotoroa.

In Maori tradition the lakes were created by a great chief and magician, Rakaihaitu, who travelled down the South Island digging lakes as he went.

At the northern end of Lake Rotoiti is the village of St Arnaud, which has the DOC visitors’ centre, a shop, campgrounds and accomodation, as well as a shuttle service to the track entrances (or skifields in winter) and a water taxi service.

The park’s long valleys are connected by alpine passes and ridge routes that are generally gentler than those in Arthur’s Pass National Park further to the south and which are within the capabilities of fit, reasonably experienced trampers, although it can snow on the tops at any time of the year. Most of the major rivers and streams are bridged and there are over a dozen huts scattered around the park. Tramping options range through daywalks to 7 days or more.

Travers Valley

Because the park is relatively sheltered from the extremes of weather coming from the south-east or south-west, the climate is more moderate than the main alpine areas in the South Island. The eastern-most area (Travers Valley) receives an average of (only) 2000mm of rain a year. That might not sound too good until you compare it with the 6000mm a year that parts of Arthur’s Pass receive. However, it’s not far to the Tasman sea and the weather is highly changeable.

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