The Rangitata River is one of the

braided river A braided river, or braided channel, consists of a network of river channels separated by small, often temporary, islands called braid bars or, in English usage, ''aits'' or ''eyots''. Braided streams tend to occur in rivers with high sediment l ...

s that helped form the

Canterbury Plains The Canterbury Plains () are an area in New Zealand centred in the Mid Canterbury, to the south of the city of Christchurch in the Canterbury region. Their northern extremes are at the foot of the Hundalee Hills in the Hurunui District, and in t ...

in southern New Zealand. It flows southeast for from the

Southern Alps The Southern Alps (; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) is a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The name "Southern ...

, entering the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

northeast of

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

. The river has a catchment area of , and a mean annual flow of at Klondyke. The

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

name "Rangitata" (Rakitata) has been variously translated as "day of lowering clouds", "close sky", and "the side of the sky". The river formed the Rangitata Valley, in the center of the Southern Alps, and the on-location photography of the

Edoras Rohan is a fictional kingdom of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim call their land the ...

set from '' The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'', and ''

The Return of the King ''The Return of the King'' is the third and final volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', following ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' and ''The Two Towers''. It was published in 1955. The story begins in the kingdom of Gondor, whi ...

'' was filmed in this valley, on and around Mount Sunday. Several remote sheep stations are located near Mount Sunday. These include

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

, Mt Potts, and Erewhon. Erewhon was named by Samuel Butler who was the first white settler to live at the Mesopotamia sheep station.

Erewhon ''Erewhon: or, Over the Range'' () is a novel by English writer Samuel Butler, first published anonymously in 1872, set in a fictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on Victorian society. The firs ...

is also the name of a novel written by Butler anonymously in 1872. In 1932 an outdoor ice skating rink was established by the river beneath Mount Harper. Before the river enters the Canterbury Plains, the river flows through the

Rangitata Gorge The Rangitata Gorge is a gorge located in the Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury High Country in the South Island of New Zealand. The narrow gorge links the headwaters of the Rangitata River with the fertile Canterbury Plains. The Rangitata gorge ...

where part of it is diverted to the

Rangitata Diversion Race The Rangitata Diversion Race or RDR is a combined irrigation and power generation scheme that diverts water from the Rangitata River to irrigate over 100,000hectares of farmland in Mid-Canterbury, New Zealand. The RDR project was the first major ...

(RDR) for irrigation and hydroelectric generation. The RDR was built between 2 April 1937 and 1944, and supplies water to the Montalto and Highbank schemes before joining the

Rakaia River The Rakaia River is in the Canterbury Plains in New Zealand's South Island. The Rakaia River is one of the largest braided rivers in New Zealand. The Rakaia River has a mean flow of and a mean annual seven-day low flow of . In the 1850s, Euro ...

. The entry point has New Zealand's first acoustic fish fence, keeping salmon smolt in the river and preventing them ending up on farmland. There is a second irrigation system which has its off take below and on the opposite river bank from the RDR. This system is called the Rangitata South Irrigation Scheme. This system rums through a static fish screen on its way into 7 man made dams, holding a total of 18,000,000 m3 of water to distribute across 16,000ha of formerly dry land farming area. This system has a fish spawning section to help bolster the number of sport fish available for recreational fishermen. Towards its mouth, the river originally split into two streams, forming a large delta island (

Rangitata Island Rangitata Island is a long lens-shaped island in the delta of the braided Rangitata River in Canterbury, New Zealand, approximately halfway between Timaru and Ashburton, New Zealand. The island is approximately long and about wide at its wides ...

). This island was crossed by

State Highway 1 The following highways are numbered 1. For roads numbered A1, see list of A1 roads. For roads numbered B1, see list of B1 roads. For roads numbered M1, see List of M1 roads. For roads numbered N1, see list of N1 roads. For roads numbere ...

and the

Main South Line The Main South Line, sometimes referred to as part of the South Island Main Trunk Railway, is a railway line that runs north and south from Lyttelton in New Zealand through Christchurch and along the east coast of the South Island to Inverca ...

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

between

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

and Rangitata and thus was an island connected directly by New Zealand's main

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

and one of its primary railway lines. However, the south branch of this split has since been blocked, and the riverbed developed for agricultural purposes. Its course remains as a flood plain, but water does not normally flow here any longer. The Rangitata is the most fished river in the Central South Island Region, having a self-sustaining

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ve ...

fishery. The salmon account for about 75 percent of angler activity on the river, other species fished are brown trout, rainbow trout and brook char. On 23 December 1999, Fish and Game New Zealand lodged an application for a

water conservation order A water conservation order is a legal ruling to protect aspects of water bodies. It may be to protect the quantity of the water itself or for any issues relating to the water body as a whole. New Zealand In New Zealand, a Water Conservation Order i ...

on the Rangitata River. In June 2006, the water conservation order was gazetted. A locomotive, DC 4686, ended up completely submerged in the river on 4 January 2002, after floodwater undermined a stopbank supporting the railway line, causing a derailment.

References

{{Rangitata Rivers of Canterbury, New Zealand Rivers of New Zealand

See also

References