Kaitorete Spit, Canterbury New Zealand
A bank of shingle and sand-sunes separating Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) from the Pacific Ocean, the Kaitorete Spit is nearly 30 kilometres long. It was once an important route for Māori travelling from Banks Peninsula to southern settlements. The remains of camps, ovens and middens can still be found along the spit. The spit was much easier travelling than the vast wetlands that extended inland from Te Waihora.
The spit (actually a barrier formation) is an impressive landform. It was formed about 6000 years ago by gravels transported by the Rakaia River and pushed into place by the Pacific Ocean.
It’s the largest remaining area in New Zealand of native pingao (golden sand sedge), a bright-orange plant prized for weaving. Pingao is a threatened species, outcompeted by introduced marram grass. A beautiful golden creeping plant pingao dunes are less steep, more rounded and more stable than sand dunes formed where marram grass grows.
Kaitorete is also home to other threatened plants and animals, some of which are unique to this location, such as woolly head Crapspedia ‘Kaitorete’, and a flightless moth! It’s a fantastic place to spot katipo spiders and lizards too. The dune landscape has in paces been altered by pastoral development, nevertheless the spit is a wide, open, wind-swept landscape very desert-like in its appearance and features. A great many shore, water fowl and wading birds frequent the spit and Lake Ellesmere and some, including terns and dotterels, breed on the shingle and sand flats along its length.
Kaitorete Spit, Canterbury New Zealand
A bank of shingle and sand-sunes separating Te Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) from the Pacific Ocean, the Kaitorete Spit is nearly 30 kilometres long. It was once an important route for Māori travelling from Banks Peninsula to southern settlements. The remains of camps, ovens and middens can still be found along the spit. The spit was much easier travelling than the vast wetlands that extended inland from Te Waihora.
The spit (actually a barrier formation) is an impressive landform. It was formed about 6000 years ago by gravels transported by the Rakaia River and pushed into place by the Pacific Ocean.
It’s the largest remaining area in New Zealand of native pingao (golden sand sedge), a bright-orange plant prized for weaving. Pingao is a threatened species, outcompeted by introduced marram grass. A beautiful golden creeping plant pingao dunes are less steep, more rounded and more stable than sand dunes formed where marram grass grows.
Kaitorete is also home to other threatened plants and animals, some of which are unique to this location, such as woolly head Crapspedia ‘Kaitorete’, and a flightless moth! It’s a fantastic place to spot katipo spiders and lizards too. The dune landscape has in paces been altered by pastoral development, nevertheless the spit is a wide, open, wind-swept landscape very desert-like in its appearance and features. A great many shore, water fowl and wading birds frequent the spit and Lake Ellesmere and some, including terns and dotterels, breed on the shingle and sand flats along its length.