thumb|View across Ōkārito Lagoon

Ōkārito Lagoon is a coastal lagoon on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is located south of Hokitika, and covers an area of about , making it the largest unmodified coastal wetland in New Zealand. It preserves a sequence of vegetation types from mature rimu forest through mānuka scrub to brackish water that has been lost in much of the rest of the West Coast. The settlement of Ōkārito is at the southern end of the lagoon.

Name

The lagoon's name is from the Māori , place of, and , the young shoots of the bulrush or raupō (Typha orientalis), a valued food source. Another account has Ōkārito taking its name from a rangatira named Kārito, whose daughters Mapourika and Wahapako gave their names to nearby Lake Mapourika and Lake Wahapo. The lagoon's official name has been spelled with macrons over the vowels since 2010, although it is still commonly seen written as "Okarito".

Geography

left|thumb|The lagoon from the south, on Ōkārito Trig

The lagoon is in area, mostly quite shallow. It is the largest sandbar-built estuarine wetland in the West Coast region – and the largest such unmodified wetland in all New Zealand – and is roughly in the middle of a series of wetlands that extends for 40 km, between the Wanganui River in the north and the Waiho River in the south. Around the lagoon is a low moraine ridge left by a glacier 18,000 years ago as it retreated up what is now the Whataroa River. As well as the common white-faced heron, one can see royal spoonbills and the famed white heron or kōtuku (Ardea alba modesta). Banded dotterels and variable oystercatchers breed on Ōkārito Beach.

There is only one breeding site for White Heron in New Zealand: within the protected Waitangiroto Nature Reserve, north of Ōkārito Lagoon. Kōtuku share the colony with royal spoonbills, known as kōtuku ngutupapa. From this colony, kōtuku disperse throughout New Zealand, but return to this spot to breed. The first European to see the colony was surveyor Gerhard Mueller, who was guided there by Kere Tūtoko in 1865. There were only four nesting pairs of kōtuku in 1941 when the land at Waitangiroto was compulsorily acquired by the New Zealand government and gazetted as a nature reserve. The New Zealand population of kōtuku is around 180.

In the West Coast gold rush of the 1860s, Ōkārito rapidly grew to a population of several thousand, with 31 hotels, three banks, and a courthouse. The port was the third busiest on the West Coast after Hokitika and Greymouth, and had a wharf, customs house, and harbourmaster. At one point 500 prospective gold miners arrived in a single day. The harbourmaster directed ships over the treacherous bar with flags and signals.

References

  • Department of Conservation information on Ōkārito Lagoon Kayak Trail
  • Okarito Community Association information on the lagoon