Upper Moutere (originally called Sarau by its founding German settlers) is a locality in the Tasman District near Motueka at the top of New Zealand's South Island.

In September 1841 the Company made an agreement in principle to sell the Chatham Islands to the Hamburg-based Deutsche Colonisation-Gesellschaft, but the British Government thwarted this move.

[citation needed] Most of the 140 German immigrants who arrived on the ship St Pauli in 1843[4] and formed the nucleus of the villages of Sarau (now known as Upper Moutere) and Neudorf were Lutheran Protestants with a small number of Bavarian Catholics.

The trip had lasted 176 days, during which time four young children had perished, seven couples had been joined in Holy Matrimony, one baby had been born and two passengers had jumped ship at a re-provisioning harbour.

By the end of 1843 artisans and labourers began leaving Nelson and by 1846 a quarter of the immigrants had moved away.

Charles Kelling was in charge of the second German immigration ship to the Nelson region, the Skjold, which arrived in 1844.

[5] He represented the Moutere (1862–1869) and then the Waimea West (1869–1873) electorates on the Nelson Provincial Council.

[6] Sarau was renamed Upper Moutere as a result of the anti-German feeling aroused by the First World War.