Lake Ruataniwha is located in the Mackenzie Basin in New Zealand's South Island. An artificial lake, it was formed as part of the Waitaki hydroelectric project. It lies on the traditional boundary of the Canterbury and Otago provinces with the town of Twizel two kilometres to the north.
It is named after Ruataniwha Station, a large sheep station in the area, part of which was purchased by the NZ Electricity Department as the site for the township of Twizel. Ruataniwha was a Maori chief who was drowned when the canoe Arai-te-uru sank near Moeraki in the 12th century.
Read more about Lake Ruataniwha: Features, Construction, Recreation
Famous quotes containing the word lake:
“What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone! None of your half-mile swamps, none of your mile-wide woods merely, as on the skirts of our towns, without hotels, only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-board and station, over ground much of it impassable in summer!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)