Community Contributed
Tararua Mountain Range
Kete Horowhenua2020-03-23T16:49:52+00:00Extends from the Manawatu Gorge in the north to the Rimutaka Saddle in the south.
| Location | North Island, New Zealand. Extending from the Manawatu Gorge in the north to the Rimutaka Saddle in the south. |
This is a rugged area of steep sided hills covered largely in native beech forest with wind-lashed ridges of rotten rock and tussock grass rising to over 1,500 metres in places. On a fine summer's day the ridges and peaks provide great views not only of the Tararua range itself, but far beyond to Mt Taranaki in the north-west, the Wairarapa valley in the east, south to Wellington harbour and the Kaikoura range and west to Kapiti Island and the Marlborough Sounds. For much of the winter snow blankets the higher bush and the tops - an awesome place to be when the weather is kind!
On the sides of the ranges precipitous streams flow from the open tops, down through the beech forest, combining to form rivers sometimes flowing along open grassy valleys and sometimes slowing to form deep pools in narrow gorges.
The Tararua Range was New Zealand's first Forest Park. By reputation it is a beautiful, but also a potentially dangerous place. Storms sweep the Tararua tops on average 200 days a year and over 40 hunters and trampers have perished there since the early 1900s.