Tourism Waitaki - Waitaki District

Open 7 Days 9am - 5pm | Friday & Saturday 6pm - Late www.riverstonekitchen.co.nz | Tel: +64 3 431 3505 1431 State Highway 1, RD5H, Oamaru 9493 TOUR I SM WA I TAK I – WA I TAK I DI STR I CT back up before being subjected to the creation of the Southern Alps as the Pacific plate started pushing past the Australian plate. That was 5 million years ago. It’s quite special that you can actually see that evolution captured in the landscape here.” The Waitaki District has something to suit every traveller. Inland, Waitaki is home to approximately one third of the length of the Waitaki River, a system that hosts New Zealand’s largest hydro scheme. The river, plus the dams and lakes that have been formed from it, attracts huge numbers of local and domestic tourists during the summer season for boating, camping, hiking, fishing, and water skiing. Other famous attractions include the mighty Alps to Ocean Cycle Trail, which stretches 316 kilometres from its start point at Aoraki Mt Cook or in Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Basin and can take cyclists up to eight days to complete. There are two ski areas in the district, the Ohau Snow many projects going on within the organisation, we operate the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony, we project-lead Destination Management and up until recently ran a Visitor Centre and promotional services for the Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail.” Waitaki’s biggest community sponsored project is having the district become a UNESCO accredited Global Geopark. The Waitaki Whitestone Aspiring Geopark is led by a Trust whose purpose is to tell the stories of the land and its people. The Geopark covers the whole Waitaki District, which showcases the geological evolution of the 8th continent, Zealandia and 43 Geosites. The Waitaki Whitestone Geopark Trust works closely with the local tangata whenua, Rūnaka o Moeraki, to share the Māori heritage of the area which long precedes that of the colonialist generations. Munro continues, “The Trust has a co-ordinator and Geo-educator whose key areas of focus are education, science, culture, and preservation of the heritage and geology of the Waitaki District. The Assessment of the Geopark by UNESCO had to be put on hold due to COVID-19 last year. Once accredited, it will be the first Geopark in New Zealand, and the only one in the Oceania Region, which is a huge milestone.” Waitaki District stretches from Lake Ohau, on the East side of the Southern Alps, to the Pacific Ocean down the Waitaki River, and South along the Eastern coast in an ‘L’ shape. It is the only district in South Island that lies across two Regional Council boundaries: Otago and Canterbury. Thanks to its unique shape and location, Waitaki tells a story of the land through 80 million years of Earth’s geological time scale, Munro explains. “Waitaki shows how our region was formed; originally it was part of the ancient continent of Gondwana. The Tasman Sea opened up creating a shallow sea. Volcanos erupted and the shallow sea, lifted through tectonic movement, rose, fell, and then finally pushed