Lake Alexandrina (New Zealand)

Mackenzie District is a local government district on New Zealand's South Island, administered by the Mackenzie District Council. It is part of the larger Canterbury Region. The region takes its name from the Mackenzie Basin, an elliptical intermontane basin which covers much of inland Canterbury.

The South Island, also named Te Waipounamu in Māori, is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers 150,437 square kilometres (58,084 sq mi), making it the world's 12th-largest island, constituting 56% of New Zealand's land area. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate. The South Island is shaped by the Southern Alps which run along the island from north to south. They include New Zealand's highest peak, Aoraki / Mount Cook at 3,724 metres (12,218 ft). The high Kaikōura Ranges lie to the northeast. The east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains while the West Coast is renowned for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, a very high proportion of native bush and national parks, and the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The main centres are Christchurch and Dunedin. The economy relies on agriculture, fishing, tourism, and general manufacturing and services. With a population of 1,225,000 as of June 2023, the South Island is home to 23% of New Zealand's 5.2 million inhabitants. After the 1860s gold rushes in the early stages of European settlement of the country, the South Island had the majority of the European population and wealth. The North Island's population overtook the South Island's in the early 20th century, with 56% of the New Zealand population living in the North Island in 1911. The drift north of people and businesses continued throughout the twentieth century.

New Munster was an early original European name for the South Island of New Zealand, given by the Governor of New Zealand, Captain William Hobson, in honour of Munster, the Irish province in which he was born.

University of Canterbury Mount John Observatory (UCMJO), previously known as Mt John University Observatory (MJUO), is New Zealand's premier astronomical research observatory. It is situated at 1,029 metres (3,376 ft) ASL atop Mount John at the northern end of the Mackenzie Basin in the South Island, and was established in 1965. There are many telescopes on site including: one 0.4 metre, two 0.6 metre, one 1.0 metre, and a 1.8 metre MOA telescope. The nearest population centre is the resort town of Lake Tekapo (pop. >500). Approximately 20% of nights at UCMJO are photometric, with a larger number available for spectroscopic work and direct imaging photometry. UCMJO is operated by the University of Canterbury, and is the home of HERCULES (High Efficiency and Resolution Canterbury University Large Echelle Spectrograph), and the observational wing of the Japanese/New Zealand MOA collaboration (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) led by Yasushi Muraki of Nagoya University. A Japanese funded, 1.8 metre telescope was used initially by the MOA Project, before handover to the University of Canterbury at the conclusion of the MOA Project in 2012. In June 2012 an area of 430,000 hectares (1,700 sq mi) around the observatory was declared as the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve by the International Dark-Sky Association, one of only four such reserves around the world at that time. The area has a Bortle Scale of 2.

Lake Tekapo Airport (IATA: N/A, ICAO: NZTL) is a Non-Certificated Airport 1.5 NM (2.8 km; 1.7 mi) west of Lake Tekapo township in the Mackenzie District of the South Island in New Zealand. The airport was constructed by Air Safaris in 1974 for scenic charter flights over the Southern Alps.

Lake Tekapo (often known simply as Tekapo (Māori: Takapō) to avoid confusion with the lake itself) is a small township located at the southern end of the lake of the same name in the inland South Island of New Zealand. It had 558 residents according to the 2018 census, being one of five settlements in the sparsely populated Mackenzie Basin. State Highway 8 runs directly through the township – 227 kilometres (141 mi) from Christchurch and 256 kilometres (159 mi) from Queenstown. Daily shuttle services link Lake Tekapo to Christchurch and Queenstown. The lake is a popular tourist destination, and several resort hotels are located at the township. Lake Tekapo Airport is located 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) west of the town where local tourism operator Air Safaris is based. Twizel lies 60 km (39 minutes drive) south of Lake Tekapo via Lake Pukaki and Burkes Pass lies 21 km (15 minutes drive) west along State Highway 8.

The Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo on the South Island of New Zealand is a small Anglican church used by various denominations. Built in 1935 as a memorial church to commemorate early settlers, it is one of the most photographed items in the country. It has a Category I heritage registration by Heritage New Zealand.

The Tekapo A Power Station is a hydroelectric facility at the southern end of Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Basin, Canterbury, New Zealand. It is a short distance south of the township. The power station is owned and operated by Genesis Energy Limited.

The Fork Stream is a river in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. It arises in the Gamack Range and flows south-east into the Tekapo River, which exits at Lake Benmore and eventually via the Waitaki River into the Pacific Ocean. Fraser Stream is a tributary. A high proportion of the stream's flow comes from snow melt. There are trout in the stream.

Lake George Scott, also called Scott Pond, is a small lake situated on the Tekapo River approximately 3 kilometres downstream of Lake Tekapo, New Zealand. It is a man-made lake formed to divert water from the river into the Tekapo hydro electric canal. The Lake is named after the late George Scott a former superintendent of the nearby Tekapo A power station. New Zealand's Department of Conservation maintains a walkway to the lake from the Lake Tekapo Township.

Lake Tekapo Regional Park is a regional park in the Canterbury Region of New Zealand's South Island. It covers 165 hectares (410 acres) at the eastern side of the southern end of Lake Tekapo, east of the Lake Tekapo township. It is the newest of the four Canterbury regional parks managed by Environment Canterbury.

The Mackenzie Basin (Māori: Te Manahuna), popularly and traditionally known as the Mackenzie Country, is an elliptical intermontane basin located in the Mackenzie and Waitaki Districts, near the centre of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest such basin in New Zealand. Historically famous mainly for sheep farming, the sparsely populated area is now also a popular tourism destination. The basin was named in the 1850s by and after James Mckenzie, a shepherd and would-be farmer of Scottish origin. Mckenzie was captured for allegedly stealing sheep; he herded his flocks in what was then an area almost totally empty of any human habitation, though Māori previously lived there intermittently. After his capture, the area was soon divided up amongst new sheep pasture stations in 1857.