Image: Benhi Dixon | Creative Commons
Trees on the Kahikatea Walk, Carter Scenic Reserve
Carter Scenic Reserve

Located in the Wairarapa region

Carter Scenic Reserve, also known as Uhi Mānuka, is one of the few remaining remnants of patchwork landscape once typical of the Wairarapa - grass, wetland, shrubland, and forest.

Carter Scenic Reserve is in Wairarapa, 12 km south-east of Carterton on the Gladstone Road.

From Carterton follow Park Road to the end, turn left into Carters Line and right into Gladstone Road. The reserve is signposted approximately 3 km along Gladstone Road. The car park is about 500m along the driveway.

You can take your dog onto the reserve as long as it is on a leash.

This area of swamp and semi-swamp forest on two old terraces of the Ruamahanga River represents a patchwork landscape that was once typical of the Wairarapa - grass, wetland, shrubland, and forest.

Because Carter Reserve offers such a variety of habitat types, it has become a haven for some of the plants and animals that became extinct or reduced to low numbers through land clearance in the Wairarapa Plains during the 1880s and 1900s. They include brown mud fish and Coprosma pedicellata, a small leafed plant that grows in areas that are very wet in the winter and very dry in summer.