New Zealand

5th November - 4th December 2005

Introduction

If you are planning on visiting New Zealand and want to see as much of the endemic wildlife as possible, I would recommend spending at least a month on your tour. The distances involved and the slow, twisty nature of the roads means that a large amount of your time will be spent driving between places. I had tried to plan as efficient a route as possible, but still ended up driving about 7000km in my circumnavigation of both islands. Despite the often rushed nature of my tour, I managed to see all bar one of the endemic landbirds, including 4 species of Kiwi, and most of the numerous seabirds that are present in New Zealand waters in early summer. I even managed to get decent photographs of most of them...

Below is a clickable map of all the places I visited on this trip. Each link will take you to a page outlining the key points of interest and illustrated with photos taken at that location. Some places were obviously better than others and this is reflected in the number of photos on each page.

Paparoa National Park Fox & Franz Josef Glaciers Milford Sound Homer Tunnel Eglington Valley Ulva Island Stewart Island Nugget Point Taiaroa Head MacKenzie Basin & Mount Cook St. Anne's Lagoon Kaikoura Queen Charlotte's Sound Ruatiti Pureora Urewera National Park Rotorua Miranda Tiritiri Matangi Island Hauraki Gulf Trounson Forest Park Muriwai Beach

North Island
1. Muriwai Beach
2. Trounson Forest Park
3. Hauraki Gulf
4. Tiritiri Matangi Island
5. Miranda
6. Rotorua
7. Urewera National Park
8. Pureora Forest Park
9. Ruatiti

South Island
10. Queen Charlotte Sound
11. Kaikoura
12. St. Anne's Lagoon
13. MacKenzie Basin & Mount Cook
14. Taiaroa Head
15. Nugget Point
16. Stewart Island
17. Ulva Island
18. Eglington Valley
19. Homer Tunnel
20. Milford Sound
21. Fox & Franz Josef Glaciers
22. Paparoa National Park