New Zealand’s landscapes are mesmerizing and mind-blowing. The air here is breathtakingly clean and the grass is incredibly green. According to legend, before creating the earth, God decided to practice on a small piece of land, and the result exceeded all his expectations. That’s how New Zealand came to be.
New Zealand is one of the few places in the world where a variety of natural landscapes and climatic zones are found on a relatively small territory, and all this with a very small area of 268 000 km².
It has it all: vast expanses of sea and ocean with endless sandy beaches, rocks and cliffs. High mountains with ice caps and glaciers. Fields, forests, plains, hills, evergreen meadows. Crystal clear lakes and rivers reflecting the sky on their smooth surface. You can find tropical forests and almost Antarctic landscapes.
Every year tens of thousands of tourists come to the country to visit these unique places. New Zealand is one of the most popular places in the world for ecotourism and the government supports and develops this direction in every possible way.
New Zealand, as well as other lands with temperate climate, has less diversity of plant and animal species than countries of tropical zones. However, the isolation of the country has imposed special conditions on the development of flora and fauna and formed unique species not found anywhere else in the world.
For example, of the 2,500 conifers, flowering plants and ferns native to New Zealand, more than 80% are found nowhere else in the world. Of the 245 species of birds breeding in New Zealand before the arrival of humans, 71% were endemic. This high rate is mainly a result of the remoteness of New Zealand’s islands from other lands.
Volcanoes
New Zealand is truly a land of volcanoes. In the country’s largest city of Auckland alone, there are 48 relatively small volcanoes spread over an area of about 20 km². Some of them are practically invisible, while others have retained a distinct cone-shape and are easily recognizable in the landscape. If you climb them, you can enjoy beautiful views of the city and the coast. All 48 volcanoes extend from Lake Pupuke in the north to Mount McLaughlin in the south of the city and together form the Auckland Volcanic Field.
Fjords
Breathtaking in its beauty and pristine unspoiled nature, Fiordland National Park is another “magical” place in New Zealand.
Fjordland is the largest national park in the country, with an area of more than 12.5 thousand km². It is located in the southwest of the South Island in the Te Wahipoinamu Nature Reserve, which, like the Tongariro National Park, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Fiordland National Park includes 15 fjords, the most famous of which are: the breathtakingly beautiful Milford Sound, the deepest black-water Dautful Sound and the largest, reaching 40 km long and 8 km wide, Dusky Sound.
Rivers and lakes
Being in New Zealand you are always somewhere close to water. Wherever you go, you’ll be accompanied by seaside scenery, shimmering lakes, leisurely rivers and waterfalls tumbling down from the mountains.
The biggest attraction is the local lakes. Formed mainly by two main factors – volcanic activity on the North Island or glaciers on the South Island – they are scattered in countless numbers across the country. In total there are more than 3 thousand lakes, including 270 with an area of more than 500 m2.
The largest lake, Taupo, is located in the central part of the North Island and it is a special lake: it was formed in the caldera of a super volcano, the largest eruption in the world in the last 5000 years. This place is unique due to its origin and picturesque coastal pattern of rocks, and also on the surface of the lake floating and not sinking rounded stones, which at first surprises many tourists. On closer inspection, the stones turn out to be porous volcanic glass, also known as pumice.