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Sutherland Falls
New Zealand's tallest waterfall, a three-tiered cascade from a glacial lake in Fiordland
Sutherland Falls drops 580 metres in three great leaps from Lake Quill, high in the mountains of Fiordland on New Zealand's South Island, making it the tallest waterfall in the country. Fed by rain and snowmelt in one of the wettest places on Earth, the falls thunder down a sheer rock face deep in a remote wilderness of glacier-carved valleys, beech forest, and towering peaks. The setting, hard to reach and often wrapped in cloud and rain, is as spectacular as the cascade itself.
Lake Quill, the source, sits in a hanging valley scooped out by ancient glaciers, and the water spills from its lip down three distinct tiers of about 229, 248, and 103 metres. The falls lie within Fiordland National Park, part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area, a vast and largely roadless landscape of fiords, lakes, and rainforest that receives several metres of rain a year. That deluge keeps the falls flowing year-round and feeds the rivers and sounds that make the region one of the wildest in the temperate world.
The falls are reached on foot via the famous Milford Track, often called the finest walk in the world, which threads through the mountains between Lake Te Anau and Milford Sound. They are named after Donald Sutherland, a Scottish-born explorer and settler who, with companions, came upon them in 1880 while exploring the region. For decades they were believed to be among the tallest waterfalls on Earth, and they remain a highlight of one of New Zealand's great wilderness journeys.