Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Environment
A small chip off the very old block of Gondwanaland, which broke away 85 mil-
lion years ago, New Zealand's natural world is full of strange creatures, unique
plants and peculiar landforms. Although it has been greatly altered during
1000 years of human occupation, it remains a wild and deeply intriguing place
to visit, most notably in its national parks and marine reserves that enjoy a
high level of protection. Environmentalists, however, have plenty to keep them
occupied.
NZ is one of the most spectacular places in the world to see geysers. Rotorua's short-lived
Waimangu geyser, formed after the Mt Tarawera eruption, was once the world's largest, of-
ten gushing to a dizzying height of 400m.
The Land
NZ is a young country - its present shape is less than 10,000 years old. Having broken away
from the supercontinent of Gondwanaland (which included Africa, Australia, Antarctica and
South America) in a stately geological dance some 85 million years ago, it endured continual
uplift and erosion, buckling and tearing, and the slow fall and rise of the sea as ice ages came
and went. Straddling the boundary of two great colliding slabs of the earth's crust - the Pacif-
ic plate and the Indian/Australian plate - to this day NZ remains the plaything of nature's
strongest forces.
The result is one of the most varied and spectacular series of landscapes in the world, ran-
ging from snow-dusted mountains and drowned glacial valleys to rainforests, dunelands and
an otherworldly volcanic plateau. It is a diversity of landforms you would expect to find
across an entire continent rather than a small archipelago in the South Pacific.
A by-product of movement along the tectonic plate boundary is seismic activity - earth-
quakes. 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 celebrated 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 relive its brash
exuberance in what has become a mecca for lovers of art deco.
