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Showing posts with the label New Zealand

Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand

The landscape in this park, situated in south-west New Zealand, has been shaped by successive glaciations into fjords, rocky coasts, towering cliffs, lakes and waterfalls. Two-thirds of the park is covered with southern beech and podocarps, some of which are over 800 years old. The kea, the only alpine parrot in the world, lives in the park, as does the rare and endangered takahe, a large flightless bird. Milford Sound

Waitomo Glowworm Caves New Zealand

The Waitomo Glowworm Caves were first explored in 1887 by local Maori Chief Tane Tinorau accompanied by an English surveyor Fred Mace. Local Maori people knew of the Caves existence, but the subterranean caverns had never been extensively explored until Fred and Tane went to investigate. They built a raft of flax stems and with candles as their only lighting, floated into the cave where the stream goes underground. Waitomo Glowworm Caves

Skippers Canyon New Zealand

Skippers Canyon is a historic and scenic gorge, some 22 kilometres in length that is located several kilometres north of Queenstown. Today accessed from Queenstown via the same road that leads to Coronet Peak skifield, Skippers Canyon houses the Shotover River, one of New Zealand's richest gold bearing rivers which was named by William Gilbert Rees. Rees, his wife Francis and brother-in-law Nicholas Von Tunzelmann were the first European settlers in and near where Queenstown is now located. Skippers Canyon

Pink and White Terraces

New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces were considered a natural wonder. They were thought to have been completely destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption in 1886, but researchers discovered portions of the Pink Terraces on the bottom of Lake Rotomahana in 2011 and six months later portions of the White Terraces. The Pink and White terraces have been dubbed by a number of people as "The Eighth Wonder of the World". Pink and White Terraces

Milford Sound

Milford Sound is a fjord in the south west of New Zealand's South Island, within Fiordland National Park and the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. It has been judged the world's top travel destination in an international survey and is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination. Rudyard Kipling had previously called it the eighth Wonder of the World. Milford Sound