The farther a country is from civilization, the less is known about it. The peculiarity of New Zealand is its geographical isolation from the world; its closest neighbors – Australia, Tonga, Fiji – are thousands of kilometers away from it. The more tempting this destination becomes in the eyes of the traveler. Which of your friends can boast that they have visited New Zealand?
If you are planning to travel to the ends of the world, these 10 places in New Zealand are worth paying special attention to:
1. Hobbiton
Hobbiton is a village that was built specifically for the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The main attraction of New Zealand near the city of Matamata. Every year tens of thousands of fans of John Ronald Tolkien’s work come here to see with their own eyes a piece of their favorite fairy tale.
It all started in 1999, when director Peter Jackson, while traveling around New Zealand, found the perfect location to depict a hobbit village. Local residents happily participated in the decoration creation project. The film crew spent more than a year building them. They even sent the New Zealand army to help – soldiers built the road to the village. All houses and details of hobbit life are made of either wood or plastic – no false cardboard decorations!
2. Milford Sound
The author of books about Mowgli, John Rudyard Kipling, was hard to surprise with the beauty of nature. The writer traveled a lot and saw everything. But when he visited Milford Sound, he recognized this place as one of the most beautiful and called it “The Eighth Wonder of the World.”
The bay is located in the southwestern part of New Zealand’s South Island, where the Tasman Sea cuts into the land for almost ten kilometers, forming long fjords hidden behind the rocks. Although Milford Sound is difficult to reach, it is now one of New Zealand’s most popular tourist destinations, attracting more than half a million tourists each year.
3. Franz Josef Glacier
There lived a girl named Hinehukatere. She loved to climb mountains, and one day she convinced her fiancé Tave to go with her. The journey turned into a tragedy: the guy died in a landslide, and Hinehukatere cried bitterly and for a long time. So much so that I cried enough tears to fill an entire glacier. This legend is probably used by the Maori Indians living near the Franz Josef Glacier to illustrate safety precautions for hiking.
Franz Josef Glacier is located in the western part of the South Island of New Zealand. This is the “fastest” glacier in the world: due to the melting of the waters that feed it, the glacier moves at a speed of approximately 2 meters per hour, managing to cover a decent distance in a day. The best view of the glacier opens from the mountain peaks, where tourists are delivered by helicopter from the nearby town of Franz Josef.
4. Fox Glacier
Unlike the Franz Josef Glacier, the Fox Glacier is not shortening, but lengthening. About four meters per month. The reason is regular snowfalls at the start of the glacier, in the New Zealand Alps. The peculiarity of the Fox Glacier is that it comes quite close to the coast, only 19 kilometers short of the ocean. The contrast of green grass and ice looks very impressive; Hundreds of thousands of tourists and ski lovers come to Fox Glacier every year.
5. Tongariro National Park
One of the oldest national parks in the world, Tongariro was founded in 1887 when the Maori aborigines ceded the land to the British Crown to prevent it from being taken over by Europeans. Tongariro occupies approximately 800 square kilometers in the central part of the North Island. The park is essentially a volcanic desert, where the main tourist attractions are active (there are three of them – Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu and Tongariro) and extinct volcanoes. On the slopes of the Ngauruhoe volcano, Peter Jackson filmed episodes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
6. Waitomo Caves
Photo: travelonline.com
A place where you can touch the stars “with your hand” – this is exactly what tourist brochures invite to the Waitomo Caves, which are located on the North Island of New Zealand. The booklets almost do not deceive: inside the cave, the traveler really gets the impression that the starry sky is at arm’s length. It’s not about a magical portal, but about a special type of insect – fungus gnats. Both the insects themselves and their larvae have a bioluminescent effect, that is, they glow in the dark. Hordes of these insects inhabit the ceilings and walls of caves and stop emitting light only in one case – if they are frightened. Therefore, tourists who are brought here on excursions in boats are asked to be as quiet as possible. Otherwise, the “stars” will go out.
7. Lake Taupo
What to do on a lake that was formed on the site of a super-volcano that exploded 27,000 years ago? Do extreme sports! That’s exactly what the New Zealanders did, creating the “adrenaline capital of New Zealand” around Taupo, the country’s largest lake. Tourists here are offered any type of extreme entertainment: from skydiving to bungee jumping. Tourists prefer the first, that is, to climb higher into the sky in order to get a good look at the endless mirror of the freshwater Lake Taupo and all its coastal beauties.
8. Huka Falls
The fresh water reserves of the Taupo crater lake were enough for one more attraction: the Huka Falls are located a five-minute drive north of it. A cascade of waterfalls stretches along the Waikato, New Zealand’s largest river, which flows from Taupo. Waterfalls do not attract tourists due to their height (the steepest threshold is only 11 meters),
and the amount of water: 220,000 liters fall from a cliff per second! For comparison: only 30,000 liters pass through the famous Reichenbach Falls (where Sherlock Holmes allegedly died in a fight with Professor Moriarty) per second.
9. Geysers of Uai-O-Tapu
Who hasn’t at least once dreamed of taking a bath in champagne! In New Zealand there is a “Champagne Bath”, but, unfortunately, you won’t be able to swim in it. The water temperature in the hot spring, which resembles a pool of sparkling drink thanks to the abundant emissions of carbon dioxide, reaches 80 degrees Celsius.
Champagne Bath is just a small part of the geysers in the area of high geothermal activity that is located in the Taupo volcanic zone.
The cluster of geysers is called Wai-O-Tapu, which means “Sacred Waters” in the Maori language. Once home to Aboriginal people, today this place is one of New Zealand’s main tourist attractions.
10. Tiri Tiri Matangi Island
The main attraction of the island of Tiri Tiri Matangi, which is located 30 kilometers from Auckland, in the Hauraki Gulf, is birds. The island is home to rare species of birds, many of which are not found anywhere else in the world. In the late 80s of the last century, the New Zealand government awarded the island the status of a national reserve. Hunting is prohibited here, so the birds are almost no longer afraid of people. The island is very convenient for hiking; tourists come here to photograph birds, which are very sociable and easily allow you to get close to them.
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Text author: Marat Abdrakhmanov
