The ‘Centre of New Zealand’ is located atop Botanical Hill (147 m), on the eastern edge of Nelson city centre. A network of tracks thread through the reserve encompassing the hill, with connections to Sir Stanley Whitehead Park and Branford Park in the Maitai Valley. The summit offers fantastic views over central Nelson and Tasman Bay. Botanical Hill is not the actual ‘centre’ of New Zealand. Given its prominence and location next to the city centre, the top of the hill was used as an starting point for trigonometrical surveys by Chief Surveyor of Nelson, John Spence Browning in the 1870s. The true geographical centre of New Zealand (by one of several methods) is in Golden Downs Forest, a few kilometres south of Kohatu.