Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
nearby Mt Tarawera erupted without warning. The famous Pink and White Terraces (one
of several claimants to the popular title 'eighth wonder of the world') were destroyed
overnight by the same upheaval.
But when nature sweeps the board clean with one hand she often rebuilds with the oth-
er: Waimangu Valley, born of all that geothermal violence, is the place to go to experience
the hot earth up close and personal amid geysers, silica pans, bubbling mud pools and the
world's biggest hot spring. Or you can wander around Rotorua's Whakarewarewa
Thermal Village, where descendants of Maori displaced by the eruption live in the middle
of steaming vents and prepare food for visitors in boiling pools.
A second by-product of movement along the tectonic plate boundary is seismic activity
- earthquakes. Not for nothing has NZ been called 'the Shaky Isles'. Most quakes only
rattle the glassware, but one was indirectly responsible for creating an internationally cel-
ebrated tourist attraction…
In 1931, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale levelled the Hawke's Bay
city of Napier, causing huge damage and loss of life. Napier was rebuilt almost entirely in
the then-fashionable art-deco architectural style, and walking its streets today you can re-
live its brash exuberance in what has become a mecca for lovers of art deco.
However, the North Island doesn't have a monopoly on earthquakes. In September
2010 Christchurch was rocked by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Less than six months later,
in February 2011, a magnitude 6.3 quake destroyed much of the city's historic heart and
claimed 185 lives, making it the country's second-deadliest natural disaster. NZ's second
city continues to be jostled by aftershocks as it begins to build anew.
The South Island can also see some evidence of volcanism - if the remains of the old
volcanoes of Banks Peninsula weren't there to repel the sea, the vast Canterbury Plains,
built from alpine sediment washed down the rivers from the Alps, would have eroded
away long ago.
But in the south it is the Southern Alps themselves that dominate, dictating settlement
patterns, throwing down engineering challenges and offering outstanding recreational op-
portunities. The island's mountainous backbone also helps shape the weather, as it stands
in the path of the prevailing westerly winds which roll in, moisture-laden, from the Tas-
man Sea. As a result bush-clad lower slopes of the western Southern Alps are among the
wettest places on earth, with an annual precipitation of some 15,000mm. Having lost its
moisture, the wind then blows dry across the eastern plains towards the Pacific coast.
