Lake Pukaki is the largest of three roughly parallel alpine

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s running north–south along the northern edge of the

Mackenzie Basin The Mackenzie Basin (), popularly and traditionally known as the Mackenzie Country, is an elliptical intermontane basin located in the Mackenzie and Waitaki Districts, near the centre of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest su ...

on New Zealand's South Island. The others are Lakes Tekapo and Ohau. All three lakes were formed when the terminal moraines of receding glaciers blocked their respective valleys, forming

moraine-dammed lake A moraine-dammed lake occurs when the terminal moraine has prevented some meltwater from leaving the valley. Its most common shape is that of a long ribbon (ribbon lake). Example of moraine dammed lakes include: *Argentina/Chile: General Carre ...

s. The Alps2Ocean mountain bike trail follows the edge of Lake Pukaki for part of its length.

Geography

The glacial feed to the lakes gives them a distinctive blue colour, created by

glacial flour Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspe ...

, the extremely finely ground rock particles from the glaciers. Lake Pukaki covers an area of 178.7 km², and the surface elevation of the lake normally ranges from 518.2 to 532 metres above sea level. Lake Pukaki - STS088-721-15

The lake is fed at its northern end by the braided

Tasman River The Tasman River is an alpine braided river flowing through Canterbury, in New Zealand's South Island. The river's headwaters are in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park, where it is the outflow of the proglacial Tasman Lake. It is also fed by th ...

, which has its source in the Tasman and Hooker Glaciers, close to

Aoraki / Mount Cook Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Its height, as of 2014, is listed as . It sits in the Southern Alps, the mountain range that runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination, it is also a favourite ...

. To the west of Lake Pukaki lies the Ben Ohau mountain range with Ben Dhu (1607m) and Betty Hill (1601m) closest to the lake. On the eastern side there is some farmland on the flatter contours between Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo. Good views of the taller mountains in Aoraki /Mount Cook National Park, 70 kilometres to the north can be had from the southern shore of the lake.

Tahr Statue

There is a life size bronze statue of a

Himalayan Tahr The Himalayan tahr (''Hemitragus jemlahicus'') is a large even-toed ungulate native to the Himalayas in southern Tibet, northern India, western Bhutan and Nepal. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, as the population is declini ...

standing upon a boulder near the visitor centre on the southern shores of Lake Pukaki, This was the site of a protest by hunters fighting against the Department of Conservation’s controversial tahr culling programme in 2020.

Hydroelectricity

The lake is now part of the Waitaki hydroelectric scheme. The lake's original outflow was at its southern end, into the Pukaki River. The outflow has been dammed, and canals carry water from Lake Pukaki and Lake Ohau through the Ohau A power station to

Lake Ruataniwha Lake Ruataniwha is an artificial lake in the Mackenzie Basin in the South Island of New Zealand. It was formed in 1977–1981 as part of the Waitaki hydroelectric project. It lies on the traditional boundary of the Canterbury and Otago provinces, ...

. Pukaki is also fed by the waters of

Lake Tekapo __NOTOC__ Lake Tekapo ( mi, Takapō) is the second-largest of three roughly parallel lakes running north–south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin in the South Island of New Zealand (the others are Lake Pukaki and Lake Ohau). ...

, which are diverted through a canal to a power station on Pukaki's eastern shore (Tekapo B station). The lake has been raised twice to increase storage capacity (9m in 1952, and 37m in 1976 ), submerging Five Pound Note Island, which once appeared on New Zealand's five pound note. The current lake has an operating range of 13.8 m (the level within which it can be artificially raised or lowered), giving it an energy storage capacity of 1,595 GWh. Along with Lake Tekapo's 770 GWh storage, it provides over half New Zealand's hydroelectricity storage capacity. In September 2012,

Environment Canterbury Environment Canterbury, frequently abbreviated to ECan. is the promotional name for the Canterbury Regional Council. It is the regional council for Canterbury, the largest region in the South Island of New Zealand. It is part of New Zealand's s ...

approved a change in conditions of

Meridian Energy Meridian Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generator and retailer. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, generating 35 percent of the country's electricity in the year ending December 2014, and is ...

's resource consent controlling the water levels and flows of Lake Pukaki. The change allows Meridian to lower the lake a further five metres from the minimum level of 518m above sea level in the event of an energy crisis.

Nearby settlements

The closest town to Lake Pukaki is

Twizel Twizel () is the largest town in the Mackenzie District, in the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand. The town was founded in 1968 to house construction workers on the Upper Waitaki Hydroelectric Scheme. Today, Twizel is a se ...

, to the south of the lake and Tekapo is 47 km (32 minutes drive) to the northeast. skirts the southern end of the lake, and runs north along the length of its western shore, to

Mount Cook Village Aoraki / Mount Cook, often referred to as Mount Cook Village, is located within New Zealand's Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park at the end of , only south of the summit of the country's highest mountain, also called Aoraki/Mount Cook, in the S ...

in the

Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park is in the South Island of New Zealand. Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, and the eponymous village lie within the park. The area was gazetted as a national park in October 1953 and consists ...

. The nearby Pukaki Scientific Reserve is home to the Nationally Endangered moth species '' Izatha psychra.''

Road Safety

State Highway 8 runs along the edge of Lake Pukaki. A number of crashes have occurred here as drivers have come around a blind corner, seen Lake Pukaki and wanted to stop at an unsafe location to enjoy the view.

2020 Fire

A significant scrub fire burnt on the shores of Lake Pukaki in August 2020. Both State Highway 8 and SH80 were closed. Firefighters fought the fire with 14 monsoon bucket equipped helicopters, two fixed-wing aircraft, and 10 fire engines. The fire destroyed 3500 hectares and took 12 days to put out. $1 million was spent fighting it. Environmentalists believe that the spread of

wilding pines Wilding conifers, also known as wilding pines, are invasive trees in the high country of New Zealand. Millions of dollars are spent on controlling their spread. In the South Island they threaten 210,000 hectares of public land administered by ...

in the Mackenzie District along with the dry conditions allowed the scrub fire to become so destructive.

Pukaki Scientific Reserve

The Pukaki Scientific Reserve is a small scientific reserve located on the western side of Lake Pukaki next to the Mount Cook road. It is only 32 hectares in size. The Pukaki Scientific Reserve is home to the endangered Izatha psychra moth. The Lake Pukaki area is also home to the "Data Deficient" fly species '' Anabarhynchus albipennis''.

References

External links

Department of Conservation
– Mackenzie Basin short walks __NOTOC__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Pukaki, Lake Lakes of Canterbury, New Zealand