Mackenzie Country

The Mackenzie Country is a highland region of some 5000 sq.km below the mountains of the Southern Alps, within which are the three large glacier lakes Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau. It can be reached from the east either by the Burke Pass (Highway 8) or by the little-known Mackenzie Pass (unmade track), to the south of the Burke Pass. This bare plateau covered with tussock grass, cold and snowbound in winter, was settled mainly by Scottish sheep farmers with experience of hill farming.

In recent decades the Mackenzie Country has been much changed by the huge hydroelectric projects of the Upper Waikati Power Development Scheme. The large glacier lakes have been dammed, land on their shores has been drowned by rises in water level and new artificial lakes such as Lake Benmore have been created.