About Fiordland, within the Fiordland National Park...

Fiordland is the largest national park in New Zealand and one of the largest in the world. It has been recognised as one of the world’s foremost natural landscapes through its inclusion in Te Wâhipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. Fiordland National Park stretches from Martins Bay in the north to Waitutu Forest in the south and from the picturesque eastern lakes of Te Anau, Manapôuri, Monowai and Hauroko to the 14 spectacular fiords of the west coast.

Formation

Fiordland is a unique region made up mainly of hard crystalline rocks which are as old as any in New Zealand.

Intense heat and pressure deep in the earth's crust about 500 million years ago caused the formation of gneiss, schist and granite rocks. These rocks have been thrust upwards by folding of the crust, fragmented by faulting, and at times mixed with molten volcanic rock. Periods of submersion under the sea-bed have created areas of sandstone, mudstone, and limestone such as those seen today at Te Ana-au Caves.

Over the last two million years glaciers have at times covered the area, gouging, deepening and rounding U-shaped valleys, many of which are now lakes or fiords. Today hundreds of lakes dot the landscape, among them is the deepest in New Zealand, Lake Hauroko, at 462m. Fourteen fiords, reaching up to 40 km inland, extend from Milford Sound in the north to Preservation Inlet in the south. Solander Island, a tiny outlier of the park 25 km to the south, is the eroded skeleton of a volcano about one million years old.

Weather

Fiordland weather is dominated by frequent strong westerly winds, making it very changeable and often dramatic. Moisture laden air from the Tasman Sea is forced to rise quickly over the steep barrier of mountains where it cools quickly, creating heavy rain and snow. Clearing weather often reveals thousands of waterfalls streaming from sheer-sided mountains. Annual rainfall varies from 1200mm in Te Anau to 8000mm in Milford Sound. Rain falls in Fiordland on over 200 days each year.

Vegetation

Much of Fiordland’s forest clings to steep faces of hard rock covered only by a thin layer of rich, peaty humus and moss. Tree avalanches are common.

Beech trees dominate the forest with red and mountain beech growing around the eastern lakes and in the Eglinton Valley. Silver beech is the most widespread beech species, sometimes growing in association with podocarps such as Hall’s tôtara, rimu and miro.

In the very wet western parts of the park the forest type has luxuriant under-storey shrubs, tree ferns, mosses and lichens. Above the 1000 metre tree-line snow tussocks dominate with showy alpine daisies, buttercups and other herbs.

Wildlife

Fiordland is home to several threatened native animals. The Murchison and Stuart Mountains support about 150 takahç, an indigenous alpine flightless rail. These birds are distantly related to the more numerous pukeko and were thought to be extinct until they were re-discovered in 1948. The birds are carefully monitored in a restricted area of the park and their numbers boosted by an artificial rearing programme.

Fiordland was the last mainland stronghold for kâkâpô, a nocturnal flightless parrot, which was driven to the edge of extinction by introduced predators. An extensive recovery programme on a number of predator-free offshore islands has successfully increased the population from 50-86 over the past few years. Several birds, including Richard Henry - the last known Fiordland kâkâpô, named after an early explorer and conservationist - has recently been returned to Chalky Island in Fiordland as part of the recovery programme.

The Eglinton Valley is a stronghold for yellow-crowned parakeets, robins, kâkâ, long-tailed bats and a recently discovered colony of short-tailed bats.

Blue ducks and southern crested grebes are found on Fiordland lakes and streams. South Island saddlebacks, absent from Fiordland for nearly a century, have been reintroduced on Breaksea Island, where Norway rats were eradicated in 1988. The rare Fiordland skink has also benefited from the removal of rats. Fiordland has many secure predator-free islands and work is under way to protect more islands.

Introduced animals such as mice, rats, stoats, hares, deer and possums have a serious detrimental effect on native animals and plants, and strategic control programmes are carried out.

Visitors are likely to see the common forest birds like tomtits, brown creepers, grey warblers, fantails, tûî, bellbirds and native pigeons. Brown kiwi are reasonably common and their calls are often heard by trampers at night. The inquisitive mountain parrot, the kea, is a regular entertainer at higher altitudes.

Marine Life

The marine environment of Fiordland is as unique as its land areas. The very heavy rainfall of the region creates a permanent freshwater layer above the sea water in the fiords. The freshwater is stained by tannins washed out of the vegetation which cuts down the amount of light and restricts almost all of the marine life to the top 40 metres of water depth.

This 40m band is calm, very clear and relatively warm and is home to sponges, corals and fish of sub-tropical, cool water and deep water varieties. The fiords support the world’s biggest population of black coral trees of about seven million colonies, some of them up to 200 years old. They are home also to brachiopods, a primitive clam-like animal which have been bypassed by evolution, remaining unchanged in over 300 million years.

Bottlenose dolphins, fur seals, Fiordland crested penguins and little blue penguins are resident in the fiords. The fiord underwater environment is not included in the national park although two small marine reserves, in which all life is totally protected, have been established in Milford and Doubtful Sounds.

History

Fiordland was well known to the early Mâori people and many legends tell about land formation and place names. Tu Te Rakiwhanoa is said to have carved the rugged landscape from formless rock. There were few permanent Mâori residents of the region but seasonal food-gathering camps were linked by well worn trails. Takiwai, a translucent for of pounamu or New Zealand jade, was gathered from Anita Bay and elsewhere near the mouth of Milford Sound.

The British naval explorer Captain James Cook and his crew were the first Europeans to visit Fiordland and in 1773 spent five weeks in Dusky Sound. Cook's maps and descriptions soon attracted sealers and whalers who formed the first European settlements of New Zealand. From the middle of the 19th Century surveyors, explorers and prospectors began to penetrate the unexplored interior of Fiordland.

Preservation Inlet boomed briefly in the 1890s after gold was found. But efforts to establish mines, timber mills and farms in Fiordland have generally been short-lived.

The explorers Quintin Mackinnon and Donald Sutherland opened up the Milford Track in 1889 and began guiding tourists through the now world-famous route. Richard Henry was one of the pioneers of threatened species work transferring kâkâpô and kiwi to islands in Dusky Sound around the turn of last century.

An area of 940,000 hectares was first set aside for National Park purposes in 1904. But it was not until 1952 that Fiordland National Park was officially constituted. Today it covers over 1.2 million hectares and has been declared a world heritage area.

Hunting and Fishing

In the early 1900s red deer from Britain, wapiti and moose from North America and possums from Australia were liberated around Fiordland. Although no moose are thought to have survived, the wapiti bugle draws hunters from around the world each autumn. Permits to hunt red deer, wapiti and possums can be obtained from the Fiordland National Park Visitor Centre.

The lakes and rivers of Fiordland offer excellent fishing for brown and rainbow trout. Licences must be obtained and the regulations adhered to.

More information

For further information, track guide brochures, maps, publications, hunting permits, conservation products, audio-visual and interpretive displays, and track and weather up-dates contact:

Fiordland National Park Visitor Centre
Department of Conservation
Lakefront Drive
PO Box 29, Te Anau
New Zealand

www.govt.org.nz