Access

Peel Forest is well signposted 14 km from the Inland Scenic Route. There is a campground and large parking area named Te Wanahau with a shelter and information board, where the track network displayed.

The start of the track is signposted from Te Wanahau carpark.

Track

This track can be done as a loop. Starting with Acland Falls Track, keep right, passing the junction with Allans Track and then head left for a short section to the falls proper. Getting to the base of the falls is very slippery.

You then return to Rangitata Road just opposite the campground and walk 5 minutes up the road back to Te Wanahau.

Flora

Maori burned much of the forest in inland Canterbury, but the area around Mount Peel was spared and still cloaked in dense forest when the pastoralists arrived.

Polynesian History

Departing from a southern harbour, the waka Arai-te-uru left with Chief Tarahaoa and his wife Hua-te-kerekere. The waka foundered in a storm at Shag Point and many sailors were drowned. Tarahaoa and Hua-te-kerekere wandered inland, settling in a place where the setting sun melted into a mountainous skyline. They asked the gods to metamorphose their physical bodies to mountains after their deaths, wishes which were realised. Big Mount Peel and Little Mount Peel now take their respective names.

European History

John Barton Arundel Acland was the most notable owner of Mount Peel Station, having acquired the run in 1856 with his partner Charles George Tripp. The seven runs covered 105,000 acres.

River crossing for the early settlers was always a dangerous affair. A ferry was constructed in 1860 near the Cracroft homestead, marked by a tall forest pole on a high terrace at the crossing point. A red-painted rum barrel guided the traveller. The first bridge was constructed in 1870.

Acland, a prominent Anglican and member of the Legislative Council, became a notable public figure in the life of early Canterbury.,

The station has stayed in the family and the Historic Places Trust listed homestead still stands.