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| Claire Fontaine flies over Milford Sound |
Joseph de Ca'th Lon and his friends are visiting the south part of New Zealand. Today, they are flying over Fiordland National Park and Milford Sound. They have preferred to rent a small plane to have better views and to take better photos. The experience is unforgettable because of the beauty of the scenery.
They have flown from Queenstown to Fiordland National Park where they have taken a hidroplane. Meanwhile, they have been waiting for the second plane, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 22).
More information: Articles
Fiordland National Park occupies the southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest of the 14 national parks in New Zealand, with an area of 12,607 square kilometres, and a major part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage site. The park is administered by the Department of Conservation.
Almost 10,000 square kilometres of Fiordland were set aside as a national reserve in 1904, following suggestions by then-future Prime Minister Thomas Mackenzie and Southland Commissioner of Crown Lands, John Hay that the region should be declared a national park.
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| Flying over Fiordland National Park |
The area had already become a destination for trampers, following the opening up of the Milford Track from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound in 1889 by New Zealand explorers Quintin McKinnon and Donald Sutherland, which received significant publicity from a 1908 article in the London Spectator describing it as the Finest Walk in the World. The Fiordland public reserve was created as a park administered by the Department of Lands and Survey, in practical terms similar to a National Park. The only two officially named national parks in New Zealand at the time, Tongariro National Park and Egmont National Park, were administered by park boards. Consolidation of the management of these parks led to the National Parks Act of 1952, which brought Fiordland National Park into the fold, formally making it the third National Park in New Zealand.
More information: UNESCO
The only main road into the park, Milford Road, reached the Homer Tunnel area in 1935, but it was only with the tunnel's completion in 1953 that Milford Sound was accessible by road, to date the only fiord in the national park with road access.
Fiordland became the scene of one of New Zealand's most significant conservation debates when in the 1960s it was proposed to raise the level of Lake Manapouri to assist hydro-electricity production at West Arm. The ensuing battle resulted in government ultimately bowing to the weight of petitions and passing a bill in the 1970s that gave the lake statutory protection.
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| Ready to take the hidroplane in Milford Sound |
In 1986, Fiordland National Park was individually recognised as a World Heritage Site, and in 1990, together with three other national parks to the north, as part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area. The park's protected area includes all of the islands along its coast as well as the remote Solander Islands. Although the park's seaward-boundary is at the mean high water mark, a total of ten adjoining marine reserves protect large areas of water in several of the fiords. The most recent expansion of Fiordland National Park was the 1999 addition of the 482 square kilometres Waitutu Forest. Possible future additions are Big Bay, parts of the Livingston/Eglinton Ranges, and the Dean/Rowallan catchment area.
During the cooler past, glaciers carved many deep fiords, the most famous of which is Milford Sound. Other notable fiords include Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound. The retreat of the glaciers after the ice age left behind U-shaped valleys with sheer cliffs and as a result Fiordland's coast is steep and crenellated, with some of the 15 fiords reaching as far as 40 kilometres inland.
More information: Fiordland National Park
The southern ranges of the Southern Alps cover most of Fiordland National Park and combined with the deep glacier-carved valleys present a highly inaccessible landscape. At the northern end of the park, the Darren Mountains contain several peaks rising to over 2,500 metres, with views of Mount Aspiring/Tititea to the north in the neighbouring Mount Aspiring National Park. Further south, the Franklin Mountains, Stuart Mountains, and Murchison Mountains reach around 2,000 metres, with the peaks diminishing in height from north to south. The Kepler, Dingwall, Kaherekoau, Princess and Cameron Mountains further south only reach 1,500–1,700 metres.
The carving action of the glaciers has succeeded in cutting off islands from the mainland, leaving two large uninhabited offshore islands, Secretary Island and Resolution Island, as well as many smaller ones. Although these glaciers are long-gone, a few small glaciers and permanent snow fields remain, with the southernmost glacier situated below Caroline Peak.
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| Flying over Fiordland National Park |
Several large lakes lie wholly or partly within the park's boundaries, notably Lake Te Anau and Lake Manapouri, both on the western boundary of the national park, as well as the southern lakes Lake Monowai, Lake Hauroko, and Lake Poteriteri. All of these lakes exhibit the topography typical of glacier-carved valleys, with Lake Te Anau and Lake Manapouri in particular having several arms similar in look to the fiords on the west coast of the park. The Sutherland Falls, to the southwest of Milford Sound on the Milford Track, are among the world's highest waterfalls. Other tall waterfalls in the park include Browne Falls, Humboldt Falls, Lady Alice Falls, and Bowen Falls, as well as countless temporary waterfalls in the fjords that come alive following rainfall.
Prevailing westerly winds blow moist air from the Tasman Sea onto the mountains; the cooling of this air as it rises produces a prodigious amount of rainfall, exceeding seven metres in many parts of the park. This supports the lush temperate rain forests of the Fiordland temperate forests ecoregion.
More information: Department of Conservation-Te Papa Atawhai
Fiordland National Park contains the majority of the largest area of unmodified vegetation in New Zealand. The dense forests, often clinging to steep valley sides, comprise mostly silver beech and mountain beech, but also podocarps. A large variety of shrubs and ferns, often dominated by crown fern, make up a rich understory of plants, with the forest floor covered in mosses and liverworts. The abundant vegetation is supported by the high rainfall, but continues to be damaged by introduced species such as red deer and possum.
The park is also a significant refuge for many threatened native animals, ranging from dolphins and bats to reptiles, insects, and birds. Among the birds are several endangered species endemic to New Zealand such as the takahē, mōhua (yellowhead), and the critically endangered kakapo, the only flightless parrot in the world. The vulnerable Fiordland crested penguin and southern brown kiwi are also almost exclusively found within the park.
More information: Backpacker Guide
When I'm not acting, I'm usually sailing or camping
or exploring or travelling or spending time in New Zealand.
Martin Henderson
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