Sight · Nelson Lakes National Park
Take the steep forest spur to a mossy waterfall.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Nelson Lakes Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Nelson Lakes National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this place
Braeburn Walk and Falls“You're approaching the Braeburn Walk access, for a forest walk to a mossy waterfall. Allow about two hours for the full circuit, including a steep, sometimes slippery climb on the waterfall spur.”
Plays as you drive up to Braeburn Falls in the Parkwolf Nelson Lakes Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Braeburn Falls is a mossy waterfall tucked into the beech and podocarp forest near Lake Rotoroa. It lies at the end of the 2.5 km Braeburn Walk loop, which takes about two hours and is easy to intermediate overall. The main track is gentle at first, then zigzags steeply up a side track to the falls.
Use the upper viewpoint for the waterfall and its forest setting; the slope down toward the basin is steep, so keep to the viewpoint. For a photograph, include the mossy rock and ferns around the white water rather than framing only the cascade.
The opening section follows a remnant road from 1950s hydro-electric investigations and passes a grove of distinctive fuchsia trees. Beyond it, the track climbs through beech and tall podocarp forest rich in bird life. Forest-covered moraine walls and scattered erratic boulders along the climb record the area's glacial past.
Wildlife
20 sightingsNew Zealand FalconMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
39 sightingsWekaMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
11 sightingsKererūMost seen around 9 AMSighting map
55 sightingsBlack SwanMost seen around 8 AMSighting map
23 sightingsParadise ShelduckMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
17 sightingsTūīMost seen around 7 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Nelson Lakes. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
EasyFlower Brothers Walk0.5 km · 15 min · 1.5 km awayA short lakeshore walk through kahikatea forest to the Gowan outlet.
ModerateBraeburn Walk3.9 km · 2 hr · 1.5 km awayMossy falls at the end of an old forest road.
EasyLake Rotoroa Nature Walk1.3 km · 30 min · 1.5 km awayA fern-rich forest loop with quick glimpses of Lake RotoroaParkwolf’s Nelson Lakes ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
