Fiordland National Park
Fiordland National Park is the largest in New Zealand and one of the largest in the world. Occupying the southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand, Fiordland is an extremely valuable and diverse ecosystem of mountains, fjords, lakes, waterfalls, where many rare animal species live. New Zealand can boast with 14 national parks, Fiordland remains the largest and most important of them. Fiordland National Park is a mountainous area where the ocean has formed deep "sleeves".
The protected area extends over an area of 12, 500 sq. km. The park was founded in 1952 with the Fiordland including Mount Aspiring National Park, listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Within the park are New Zealand's two deepest lakes and highest waterfall and one of the rarest birds on earth.
Perhaps the biggest landmark is the incredibly beautiful Fiordland Milford Sound fjord with Milford Bay. This is the most famous fjord in New Zealand and is the only one which can be reached by land. Composed of virgin forests, clean streams and lakes, glaciers and high mountains, Milford Sound is often pointed to as the eighth wonder of the world.
The incredibly picturesque scenery of Fiordland offers one of the most beautiful landscapes of tropical forests, because everything is covered with moss, lichens and ferns. In this temperate rainforest in the South Island of New Zealand, the cold climate is the reason for the poor biodiversity. Even today, the landscape in Fiordland is one of the most unaffected by human hand corners of our planet. If released from Jura's, Fiordland is the place where the famous Jurassic Park was filmed.
Among the amazing sights of the beautiful natural park are Stirling Falls, and Bowen Falls, which is a natural outcome of the 8km eponymous river. Both waterfalls are in the list of World Heritage sites by UNESCO. Southwest of Milford Sound is located the highest waterfall in New Zealand - Sutherland Falls. The largest lakes in the territory are Lake Te Anau, Lake Manapouri, Lake Monowai, along with Lake Hauroko and Poteriteri.
Starting points for visiting the Fiordland National Park are the cities they, Queenstown and Manapour, located 15 minutes’ drive from Queenstown. The main visitor center at the park is located in Anau. The remoteness of the park is the reason that today, in it can be seen plants and animals that are endemic only to Fiordland. Wildlife of the park includes a huge variety of birds, many seals and dolphins. There are a lot of rodents (mice, rats), and mammals such as deer and rabbits.
Fiordland is home to the rarest bird in the world - Takahe, which was considered an extinct species, but was discovered in a remote part of the park in 1948. Kakapo is a kind of parrot that is unique in that it is the only among his fellows, who can not fly.
