The Darran Mountains are a prominent range within New Zealand's Fiordland National Park, the country's biggest national park. They contain the park's highest peak, Mount Tūtoko (). The range lies between

Milford Sound Milford Sound / Piopiotahi is a fiord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island within Fiordland National Park, Piopiotahi (Milford Sound) Marine Reserve, and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top t ...

(Piopiotahi) and the valley of the Cleddau River (to the west) and the broad valley of the

Hollyford River The Hollyford River / Whakatipu Kā Tuka is in the southwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It runs for through Fiordland, its sources being close to the Homer Tunnel and in Gertrude Valley in the southern Darran Mountains. At first, t ...

to the east at the northern end of the national park. They are bounded to the south by the Homer Saddle, which separates them from the Wick Mountains, and to the north by the coast of 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 ...

. The

Homer Tunnel The Homer Tunnel is a 1.2 km (0.75 miles) long road tunnel in the Fiordland region of the South Island of New Zealand, opened in 1953. New Zealand State Highway 94 passes through the tunnel, linking Milford Sound to Te Anau and Queensto ...

lies under the southwesternmost extreme of the range.Dowling, P. (ed.) (2004). ’’Reed New Zealand atlas’’. Auckland: Reed Publishing. Map 89. Other than Mount Tūtoko, other prominent peaks in the range include Mount Madeline () and Mount Christina (). Numerous lakes and

tarns A tarn (or corrie loch) is a proglacial mountain lake, pond or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. A moraine may form a natural dam below a tarn. Etymology The word is derived from the Old Norse word ''tjörn'' ("a small mount ...

are found within the range, among the largest being Lake Adelaide and

Lake Marian Lake Marian is an alpine lake at the southern end of the Darran Mountains in the Fiordland National Park in the South Island of New Zealand. The lake is located just above the treeline in a hanging valley leading northwest from the Hollyford Val ...

, and several rivers have their watershed in the mountains, such as the Tūtoko, Kaipo, and Bowen Rivers. The Bowen River, close to its mouth, provides one of Milford Sound's more notable natural attractions, the Bowen Falls. The mountains were named by Captain J. Stokes, an early surveyor of the West Coast of the South Island. Reed, A.W. (1975). ''Place names of New Zealand''. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. p. 99.

References

Mountain ranges of Fiordland {{fiordland-geo-stub