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New Zealand New Zealand Waterfall

Te Rere o Kapuni

A 18 m drop.

When to go

Dawson Falls, New Zealand
Ulrich Lange, Bochum, Germany · CC BY 3.0

In numbers.

18m

Height

OpenStreetMap

0.34m³/s

Average flow

estimate

May–Jun
Sep–Oct

Best months

60kW

Water power

estimate

The water at Te Rere o Kapuni, month by month

It roars from May to October.

The fullest months: from May to October.

  1. 0.2 m³/sJan
  2. 0.2 m³/sFeb
  3. 0.2 m³/sMar
  4. 0.3 m³/sApr
  5. 0.4 m³/sMay
  6. 0.5 m³/sJun
  7. 0.5 m³/sJul
  8. 0.5 m³/sAug
  9. 0.5 m³/sSep
  10. 0.4 m³/sOct
  11. 0.3 m³/sNov
  12. 0.3 m³/sDec
high water best months to go

From about 0.18 m³/s in the lowest month to 0.52 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from May to June and from September to October.

Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.

Waterfall in New Zealand

Te Rere o Kapuni is a waterfall in New Zealand. The water falls 18 m. It lies within Egmont National Park.

Read more on Wikipedia

Getting there.

Plan your visit

Stay, explore and get there

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

How big is it?

How big it really is.

18 mTe Rereo Kapuni1.8 ma person9.0 ma house56 mTower of Pisa

Height of the drop as mapped in OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors). Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.

60 kW

About 0.34 m³/s falling 18 m: the power of the water as it drops.

  • enough to power about 15 homes, if it were all turned into electricity

Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.

Seen from the sky.

8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.

Te Rere o Kapuni seen from above (Sentinel-2) N 2 km

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The Kapuni Stream through the falls
800 m1,000 mTe Rere o Kapuni-1.5 km-1 km-0.5 km0+0.5 km+1 km+1.5 km← upstreamdownstream →

The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.

Around the falls the river drops 352 m in 3.6 km.

What is around.

  • 5viewpointsDawson Falls Lookout, Stratford Plateau Lookout, Mirador for the summit of Mt Taranaki and 2 more
  • 8waymarked walking routesEnchanted Track, Waingongoro Track, Wilkies Pools Loop Track and 5 more
  • 2car parks
  • —swimming spots
  • 1picnic sites
  • 2toilets
  • 2information boards and visitor centres
  • —bus stops within 1 km
  • 1other named waterfalls within 4 kmCurtis Falls
  • —caves
  • 2campsitesFreedom Camping, Freedom camping (SC only)
  • 4hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmManganui Lodge, Konini Lodge, Manganui Public Shelter and 1 more
  • 1restaurants and cafés within 3 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

Towns nearby

  • Stratford15 km in a straight line
  • Mangorei20 km in a straight line
  • Inglewood20 km in a straight line
  • Eltham20 km in a straight line

Weather

The weather, month by month.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Afternoon °C16161513108789101214
Night °C998653223468
Rain & snow (mm)667272961101181091081001018099
Wet days11911131617171816161314
Sun h/day9.18.47.45.84.53.84.25.05.86.67.98.0

Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (853 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.

Photos

Through visitors' eyes.

Dawson Falls, New Zealand, February 2016 09
Michal Klajban · CC BY-SA 4.0
DawsonFalls Taranaki1
IcknieldRidgeway · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dawson Falls from across stream
Pseudopanax at en.wikipedia · Public domain

Recent years

Wet years and dry years

Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
202032%63%121%64%116%95%111%98%117%116%286%118%
2021138%56%212%80%104%108%96%116%139%115%106%233%
202212%352%118%38%131%159%195%178%114%122%207%124%
2023238%172%131%90%172%64%79%96%133%64%135%122%
2024109%62%88%129%72%87%99%133%108%117%97%63%
202571%21%77%118%95%140%200%67%107%146%106%144%

130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual

Compare with the waterfalls nearby.

Te Rere o Kapuni

New Zealand

  • 18 mHeight
  • 0.34 m³/sAverage flow
  • May–Jun, Sep–OctBest months

Curtis Falls

New Zealand

  • —Height
  • —Average flow
  • May, Sep–NovBest months

See the guide

Mount Damper Falls

New Zealand

  • —Height
  • 0.80 m³/sAverage flow
  • Jun–SepBest months

See the guide

Raukawa Falls

New Zealand

  • 14 mHeight
  • 17 m³/sAverage flow
  • Jun–SepBest months

See the guide

About these numbers

Names, height, width, riverWikidata (Q7690964) · CC0
Height of the drop© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
River flow and catchmentHydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0
ClimateNASA POWER, 1991–2020
Relief, river profile, 3D modelCopernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
Paths, viewpoints, parking© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.