Kahurangi-Nationalpark

Founded in 1996 Kahurangi National Park (English: Kahurangi National Park ) is 4520 km nature reserve area of New Zealand ² the second largest. He practically takes up the entire north-western corner of the South Island.

The largest part of the Kahurangi National Park occupy the northern foothills of the Southern Alps; a smaller part of the park consists of lowland. Its diverse landscape includes, inter alia, wild rivers, plateaus, mountain meadows with alpine vegetation, coastal forests and a karst landscape, which has the longest cave system in New Zealand. The geological structure of the region is exceptionally complex and also New Zealand's oldest fossil ( with an age of more than 500 million years ago) was found here.

Kahurangi - the name translates as " valuable property " - has in all New Zealand park, the most species-rich flora: 1226 of 2450 native plant species occur here, 71 of them anywhere else. There are, depending on location, very different habitats; which, among other factors to the altitude, but by whether they are on the east or to the wetter west side, vary. The fauna of the national park, since there have been in the original fauna of New Zealand no mammals, dominated by their birds. Zoological interest are also various types of large carnivorous land snails that are found here.

The Kahurangi National Park is popular with walkers, as it has an extensive, leading through spectacular scenery, trail system with several shelters. One of these paths is the 78.4 km Heaphy Track, named after Charles Heaphy, which leads completely through the National Park. The heart of the park is 87,000 hectares, particularly strictly protected Tasman Wilderness Area in which there are no paths or other changes caused by human hands.