VIEW to a thrill
Aotearoa is a supermodel on the world stage. But you’ll need to lace up your walking shoes to see some of our most spectacular sites, writes Lorna Thornber.
It can be easy to forget when you’re stuck in a snarl-up or ensconced in suburbia, but New Zealand is a supermodel of a nation – so blessed in the looks department that, before the pandemic, millions of people a year put up with hours in a flying sardine can just to get a look at it.
Some of our most spectacular sites are inaccessible by road, turning visiting them into a bipedal adventure through terrain that looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings (in many cases because it is).
The Great Walks are a great place to start, but you don’t have to embark on a multi-day hike to see sites worth travelling around the world for.
The walks described below lead you to some of New Zealand’s best views via terrain as varied as bush-backed beaches, snowy ranges, hidden valleys and geothermal wonderlands.
Hooker Valley Walk
See New Zealand’s highest peak reflected in a seasonally iceberg-studded lake on a 10-kilometre return hike through the sacred Tōpuni area of the Hooker Valley.
Aoraki/Mt Cook is the physical embodiment of Ngāi Tahu’s most sacred of ancestors, and you know you’re somewhere special as soon as you set off along the Southern Alpssurrounded track.
Listen out for the rumbling of distant avalanches as you make your way across the three swing bridges, and keep your eyes peeled for kea and wildflowers such as the world’s biggest buttercup, kōpukupuku.
Get there before sunrise for still more magical scenery. You can’t get a much better start to the morning than watching the big fireball in the sky cast its rays across an earth-bound god.
Pouākai Crossing
Getting a full-frontal view of Taranaki Maunga admiring his handsome reflection in an alpine tarn is the high point of this short alternative to the two- to three-day Pouākai Circuit.
Starting at the Egmont National Park Visitor Centre, you’ll pass beneath towering lava columns, the earthly scar that is the Boomerang Slip, and a blood red stream before arriving at Holly Hut, from which you can take an hour-return side trip to one of the most impressive waterfalls in the park.
Next, you’ll pass through a swamp home to species found nowhere else on earth and the golden tussockland of the Pouākai Plateau before arriving at Pouākai Tarns with its famous reflections of New Zealand’s answer to Mt Fuji.
A path through the moss- and lichen-draped trees of ‘‘Goblin Valley’’ will deliver you to the end of the track.
Lake Marian Track
You don’t have to be a hardcore hiker or fork out for a helicopter ride to soak up the scenery at a secluded alpine lake – you just need to follow the 3.1km return Lake Marian Track in Fiordland National Park.
Starting about 1km down the unsealed Hollyford Road, you’ll cross a suspension bridge and a series of spectacular waterfalls before climbing through forest to a hanging valley that is home to one of the loveliest lakes in the national park, if not New Zealand. Reflecting the mountains that hug it on clear days, it’s the stuff that Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure NZ campaigns are made of.
Roberts Point Track
Get a bird’s eye view of Franz Josef Glacier without an environmentally unfriendly helicopter ride on this 11km to 12.3km return track through Westland Tai Poutini National Park. Four photogenic swing bridges, a stairway above what looks like a fairy-tale forest, and more waterfalls than you can poke a walking stick at will keep you entertained as you make your way up the Waiho (Franz Josef Glacier) Valley, over icecarved rock and through open scrubland to Roberts Point.
From there, you’ll be able to cram the glacier, waterfalls, sheer cliffs and mountain peaks into one panoramic shot.
Duke’s Nose (Kaiaraara Rocks) Track
Standing atop the eponymous duke’s snoz, it’s easy to imagine you’re looking out at Vietnam’s Halong Bay: Whangaroa Harbour is a labyrinth of sheer volcanic cliffs and bush-clad hills descending to turquoise bays only accessible to walkers, boaties and kayakers.
If you don’t have water transport to Lane Cove, you’ll need to follow the 5.6km Wairākau Stream Track from Tōtara North, which climbs an old farm road before descending through regenerating forest to