Purakaunui Falls

Where it sits. The Purakaunui Falls drop through native bush in the Catlins, the wet, forested corner of southeastern New Zealand between Balclutha and Invercargill. The falls lie on the Purakaunui River about 17 kilometres southwest of the small town of Owaka and roughly five kilometres upstream of the point where the river reaches the Pacific at Purakaunui Bay. The approach is a short gravel side road off the main Owaka–Invercargill route, part of the Southern Scenic Route, ending at a car park with toilets and a picnic area. From there a formed track through podocarp and silver beech reaches the viewing platforms in about ten minutes each way.

What you see. The water falls roughly 20 metres in three broad, stepped tiers, spreading wider as it descends so that the whole cascade reads as a staircase rather than a single plunge. Because the river is small and the tiers are shallow, the falls photograph best in overcast weather or after rain, when the flow fills the full width of the rock and the bush stays saturated and dark. A small upper platform close to the road end is reachable by wheelchair; a flight of steps continues down to the main platform at the base, which is where almost every published photograph of the falls is taken from. The surrounding scenic reserve covers about five square kilometres and, unusually for the district, is not part of the Catlins Conservation Park.

Why it is famous. These are among the very few South Island waterfalls outside the alpine zone that are easy to reach, and they became a standard image of southern New Zealand long before mass tourism: the falls appeared on a ten-cent stamp in the 1976 New Zealand waterfalls series, and they have been a fixture of Catlins brochures ever since. The Catlins as a whole trade on that kind of unhurried, small-scale attraction — a coastline of blowholes, petrified forest, sea lion beaches and yellow-eyed penguin landings, strung together by a route that most travellers drive in a day and regret not giving two.

On screen, just downstream. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) shot its castle sequence — the Pevensie children's arrival at Cair Paravel above the sea — at Purakaunui Bay, where this same river meets the Pacific about five kilometres below the falls. The bay is a wide, cliff-backed beach with a Department of Conservation campsite, a well-regarded reef break and a road end that feels considerably more remote than the short drive from Owaka suggests. Nothing was built at the falls themselves, and the two places are often conflated in listings; the waterfall and the film location share a river and a name, not a scene. The production's other South Island locations were Flock Hill in Canterbury, where the climactic battle was staged, and Elephant Rocks near Duntroon, which became Aslan's camp.

Around the falls. The Catlins keeps its attractions close together. McLean Falls, taller and more dramatic, is about half an hour west; Cathedral Caves, accessible only for an hour or two either side of low tide, sits on the same stretch of coast; Nugget Point with its 1869 lighthouse and its rock stacks lies northeast beyond Owaka; and Jack's Blowhole, a collapsed sea cave 200 metres inland from the cliffs, is a farm walk near Jack's Bay. Hooker's sea lions haul out on several beaches and should be given a wide berth on land. Curio Bay, an hour southwest, exposes a Jurassic petrified forest on its wave platform at low tide, and Slope Point, the southernmost tip of the South Island, is marked by wind-sheared macrocarpa trees bent almost horizontal. The poet Hone Tuwhare lived at Kaka Point from 1992 until his death in 2008, and the district's landscape runs through much of his late work.

Getting there and timing. There is no public transport; the falls are a driving stop, roughly 1 hour 15 minutes from Balclutha and about two and a half hours from Dunedin or Invercargill by the coastal route. The final approach is gravel and narrow but manageable in any car. The Catlins are cooler and wetter than most of the eastern South Island, with a strong maritime influence and frequent storms driven up from the southwest, so waterproofs are worth carrying in any month. Summer, from December to March, gives the longest daylight and the best chance of pairing the falls with a beach walk; late winter and spring bring the heaviest flows. Sandflies are present near the bush, the track can be slick after rain, and mobile coverage across much of the district is patchy at best.