WHS#4

As a world traveller, I often get asked which country I loved the most. To answer that question, I usually look back on how surreal every day was in each country, how wonderful it was to just wake up and see paradise, to feel like you're in the most perfect place in the world. For me, that's New Zealand. I visited a long time ago, on a family road trip back in April 2013, but it's still one of the most memorable landscapes for me. This WHS experience was actually a good motivation and eventually, outcome of my first work in travel itineraries. My family had originally planned to go down the East Coast of the South Island through Christchurch before ending in Queenstown. I, however, had different plans. I wanted to go down the West Coast because of my interest in gemstones, and Hokitika on the West Coast is a haven for local gemstones, especially known as a jade (locally known as pounamu, the namesake of the South Island) locality. I didn't really get to hunt for jade on the beach, but I got an even more memorable adventure on this scenic route. The route down the West Coast from Picton to Queenstown brought me to Westland Tai Poutini National Park and Haast, as well as Fjordland National Park, which we visited on a day trip from Queenstown. Those few days just barely scratched the surface of this vast land. It's one of the most visually pleasing landscapes, with an extensive geological and glacial history, and some of the most unique flora and fauna on the planet. All of these different properties meet awe any visitors lucky enough to step foot on and set their eyes onto the greatness that is Te Wahipounamu.

Driving south from Hokitika, you'll enter the core zone around Franz Josef Glacier. Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers are among the most important stops and impressive sights in this huge WHS. They're unique in that they descend to such a low altitude in a subtropical climate., which makes them extremely accessible to tourists. This, of course, includes me as I walk up the glacial valley towards the glacier itself. The glaciers have definitely seen better days, and it shows in the dramatic rock formations of the valleys they carved. All the while, temperate rainforest thrives on its walls. The main difference between the 2 glaciers, at least in terms of visitor experience, is that Franz Josef's trail approaches the glacier from the front by the flat floor of the valley, while Fox's trail traverses the wall of the valley, allowing one to look down on the glacial stream and eventually, the glacier itself. Regardless, one cannot access the glacier itself without a licensed guide and equipment for walking on the ice. For me at the time, I guess seeing the great rivers of ice from the established viewpoints were enough, but I'd love to be able to walk on the glaciers, and I just hope they'll survive until I get the chance.

Close to Fox Glacier is Lake Matheson, a glacial lake with a perfectly reflective surface. Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, can be viewed from here. It's also part of the WHS as Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, though I wasn't able to visit this part of the site. Down the coast, the highway reaches Haast before curving inland to cross the Southern Alps. There are many things to see in this frontier of civilization, but the only site I remember visiting Knight's Point. This is a lookout point on the coast where you can view birds and seals. Unfortunately, my main memory of this was the unpleasant swarm of insects here. Crossing the Alps through Haast Pass, I exited the WHS towards Wanaka. To me, the lakes here deserve recognition along with the WHS. The glacier-carved Lakes Wanaka and Wakatipu are not just of great aesthetic value, but of great geological interest, pristine condition, and interesting mythological properties of the Maori. Queenstown, of course, is one of my favorite little cities in the world, simply for its atmosphere of being one with one of the greatest landscapes of the world.

It was also from Queenstown that we visited what is probably the highlight of this WHS: Fjordland National Park. This is the wildest, most dramatic, most scenic, and arguably the most untouched corner of New Zealand. I say arguably because there is a highway all the way to Milford Sound, where one can board one of the several cruise ships that go to the mouth of the fjord and back. Otherwise, I remember the landscape being unaffected by development, as ecosystems appeared completely healthy and intact, and no infrastructure severely hindered the aesthetic impact of the land. From Queenstown, stops include the lakeside town of Te Anau, Mirror Lakes, some waterfalls in the temperate rainforest-covered cliffs, and a stream from which we were allowed to drink - yes, the water tastes amazing! Finally, we arrived at the little settlement at the inner end of the fjord, where we boarded a boat that took us to the various highlights of the fjord, such as the many waterfalls, views of the mountains and the sea, outcroppings covered in seals, and boulders of pounamu before emerging at the mouth of the fjord. From here, you can't even imagine that you had passed by the huge towering snow-capped peaks on a boat. It's as if the fjord was never there. Even though the waters are apparently not part of the WHS, they are an integral part of the ecosystem and scenery here.

Obviously, I missed a lot of the important properties of Te Wahipounamu. I was unable to visit 2 out of the 4 national parks that comprise most of the core zone, but I was also unable to observe much of the extraordinary flora and fauna in these parks. But purely from the "many of the natural features which contribute to New Zealand's international reputation for superlative landscapes," I was, even as a child, able to recognize that this is truly a top-tier natural landscape of the world.