Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Great Southern Alps
Evidence of NZ's tumultuous past is everywhere. The South Island's mountainous spine -
the 650km-long ranges of the Southern Alps - is a product of the clash of the two plates; the
result of a process of rapid lifting that, if anything, is accelerating. Despite NZ's highest
peak, Aoraki/Mt Cook, losing 10m from its summit overnight in a 1991 landslide, the Alps
are on an express elevator that, without erosion and landslides, would see them 10 times
their present height within a few million years.
The South Island also sees some evidence of volcanism - if the remains of the old volca-
noes 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.
It is, however, the Southern Alps that dominate the landscape, dictating settlement pat-
terns, throwing down engineering challenges and offering outstanding recreational oppor-
tunities. The island's mountainous backbone also helps shape the weather, as it stands in the
path of the prevailing westerly winds that roll in, moisture-laden, from the Tasman 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.
B Heather and H Robertson's
Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand
is a comprehensive
guide for birdwatchers and a model of helpfulness for anyone even casually interested in
the country's remarkable bird life.
An Island of Volcanoes
On the North Island, the most impressive changes have been wrought by volcanoes. Auck-
land is built on an isthmus peppered by scoria cones, on many of which you can still see the
earthworks of
pa
(fortified villages) built by early Maori. The city's biggest and most recent
volcano, 600-year-old Rangitoto Island, is just a short ferry ride from the downtown
wharves. Some 300km further south, the classically shaped cone of snowcapped Mt Tarana-
ki/Egmont overlooks tranquil dairy pastures.
But the real volcanic heartland runs through the centre of the North Island, from the rest-
less bulk of Mt Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park northeast through the Rotorua lake dis-
trict out to NZ's most active volcano, White Island, in the Bay of Plenty. Called the Taupo
Volcanic Zone, this great 250km-long rift valley - part of a volcano chain known as the 'Pa-
