Te Puaitaha / Breaksea Sound is a small
fiord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icela ...
on the southwestern coast of
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
, New Zealand in the
Tasman Sea
The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...
.
Breaksea Island in
Fiordland National Park
Fiordland National Park occupies the southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand. It is by far the largest of the 13 national parks in New Zealand, with an area of , and a major part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Site. The park i ...
lies at its entrance. In the 1850s, early settlers
Henry Hirst
Henry Hirst (1838 – 14 December 1911) was a 19th-century Member of Parliament from Southland, New Zealand.
Private life
Hirst was born in 1838 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. He received his education at Huddersfield College. He arrived ...
and
John Watts-Russell
John Charles Watts-Russell JP (1825 – 2 April 1875) was a 19th-century New Zealand politician, a member of the Canterbury Provincial Council and a member of the Legislative Council. He was supposedly the wealthiest of the early settlers, and ...
explored the area for flat land suitable for sheep farming, but they were unsuccessful.
In October 2019, the name of the fiord was officially altered to Te Puaitaha / Breaksea Sound.
References
Fiords of New Zealand
Sounds of Fiordland
{{Fiordland