Southern Scenic Route

This is a nice DOC article about the Southern Scenic Route, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Southern Scenic Route: Te Anau – Tuatapere – Invercargill
The Southern Scenic Route between Te Anau and Invercargill is a rewarding journey for cyclists, campervanners and motorists. The 200 kilometre drive through Tuatapere takes about two and a half hours by car and is sealed along the entire distance. The road skirts the eastern boundary of Fiordland National Park and the rugged south coast, providing an introduction to southern parts of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area. There are many points of natural and historic interest along the route and varied opportunities for recreation – camping, tramping, mountain biking, trout fishing, hunting, boating, and even caving. The Fiordland National Park Visitor Centre in Te Anau and the Department of Conservation office in Invercargill have detailed track guide brochures, up to date road and track information and displays on the natural and historic features of the region.

A Natural Journey

The nature of the drive from Te Anau to Tuatapere has been shaped by the events of the last Ice Age which ended 14,000 years ago. Huge glaciers flowed out of the valleys beyond Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau, gouging a deep basin which filled with water when the ice melted. The low hummocky country south of Te Anau is a moraine composed of rubble dumped at the snout of the glacier. Most of the debris has since been spread by river sand forms the outwash gravel plains and terraces of the Waiau Valley. The main vegetation type of Fiordland and the Takitimu range is beech forest. On the drier Takitimu mountains the forest is broken by eroding screes and tussock grasslands. Around Clifden are limestone rock outcrops, and caves created by the action of streams. It is a pleasant spot to fish for rainbow and brown trout in the Waiau River. Just before Tuatapere the road enters beech and podocarp forest, a tiny remnant of the type which once completely covered the region’s terraces. Today the largest area of this forest type occurs on the marine and alluvial terraces around Waitutu River, two days walk from Bluecliffs Beach. Beyond Tuatapere the road turns east to follow the cliffs above Te Wae Wae Bay. A large number of Hector’s dolphins reside in the bay and can often be seen playing in the breakers. On a clear day tiny Solander Island can be seen to the south from McCracken’s Rest. An outlier to Fiordland National Park, it is the eroded skeleton of a volcano about one million years old. Its tooth shape is recognised in the Maori legend of Kewa the whale, said to have chewed between Stewart Island and the mainland, tossing island crumbs and a broken tooth in the process. At the ends of Te Waewae Bay lie the long flat ridges of The Hump and the Longwood Range, their summits rising above the bushline to be covered with snow tussocks and alpine tarns. At Riverton the Aparima estuary is revealed, one of several which characterize the Southland coast. Beyond it are the intensively farmed plains from which the province today derives much of its wealth.

An Historical Journey

The Maori have occupied the south of the South Island for around 1000 years and in pre-European times developed patterns of use according to available food supply. Permanent settlements at Riverton and Colac Bay were linked to a string of seasonal camps around the coast. A trade route followed up the Waiau Valley to the lakes and the greenstone resources of Milford Sound. Caves in the limestone outcrops around Clifden show evidence of having been stopping places for travelling Maori parties. The first Europeans to explore the south coast were sealers, many of whom kept their movements secret in order to protect their interests. Whales became the next quarry and Riverton was established as a whaling base by John Howell in 1836. In 1888 there was a little known gold rush at Round Hill with 300 Chinese miners living at the town of Canton. When Europeans took over mining operations a 25 km water race was built from the Longwoods for sluicing operations. In 1896 a track was cut along the south coast of Fiordland to provide a land link with the gold mining settlements of Cromarty and Te Oneroa in Preservation Inlet. A telegraph line was installed on the track in 1908 connecting the Puysegur Point lighthouse with Orepuki. More than 200 sawmills have operated in the forests of western Southland. From beginnings with axes and bullocks the industry developed sophisticated, steam powered haulers, locomotives and mills. In the 1920s the mill at Port Craig was the largest in the country. All that remains today is the school, now a tramper’s hut, and four spectacular wooden viaducts. As the accessible forests were milled and burned, pioneer farmers turned the land to agricultural use. Hydroelectric development of the Waiau Valley began in 1925 with the raising of Lake Monowai for generation. In 1971 the Manapouri hydro station was completed, diverting water from Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri to Doubtful Sound and supplying power to Tiwai aluminium smelter near Bluff.