The Wangapeka River is a river of the Tasman Region of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

. It rises in two branches, the North Branch and the South Branch, in the Matiri Range within Kahurangi National Park

Kahurangi National Park

Kahurangi National Park is a national park in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It was gazetted in 1996 and covers 4,520 km². It is the second largest of New Zealand's fourteen national parks...

, meeting some 25 kilometres southeast of Karamea

Karamea

Karamea is a town on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.It is the northernmost settlement of any real size on the West Coast, and is located 96 kilometres north-east by road from Westport. There is no other connecting road to the town - the road north ends at the Kohaihai River some...

. It flows generally northeast to reach the Motueka River

Motueka River

The Motueka River is located in the north of the South Island of New Zealand and is a popular tourist destination for watersports and fishing. The Motueka flows from the mountains 40 km west of the city of Nelson in the southeast of the catchment and flows north to the Tasman...

 30 kilometres south of Motueka

Motueka

The town of Motueka in the South Island of New Zealand lies close to the mouth of the Motueka River, on the western shore of Tasman Bay. It is, after Nelson and Richmond, the third largest centre in the Tasman Region, with a population of 7125...

.

The Wangapeka valley was the site of a major goldfield

Gold mining

Gold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.-History:...

during the late 1860s, and is mentioned in some versions of the New Zealand folk song "Bright Fine Gold".