The Poolburn Gorge is a gorge located in the Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand, 4 km east of the small settlement of Lauder. The Ida Burn flows through the 2.5 km long canyon across the Raggedy Range between the Ida Valley and the Manuherikia Valley. There are no public roads through the gorge; only the track of the former Otago Central Railway, now used as the Otago Central Rail Trail,[1] follows the river on the southern flanks of the gorge.
The landscape surrounding Poolburn Gorge is barren and dry, shaped by the typical Central Otago climate of dry hot summers and cold winters. The gorge cuts through schist rock bluffs, with the vegetation on the steep slopes consisting of tussock and hardy low-growing shrubs. Contrasting this, a ribbon of lush trees lines the immediate river banks at the bottom of the gorge. The Ida Burn joins the Manuherikia River shortly after it emerges from the Poolburn Gorge into the Manuherikia Valley.
The Pool Burn was known to southern Māori as Te Waipapapa o Karetai - the water container of Karetai, a Ngāi Tahu chief.[2]
- ^ Otago Central Rail Trail (from the New Zealand Department of Conservation website. Accessed 2014-02-18.)
- ^ Information contained on a Department of Conservation information panel at Poolburn Gorge