Westland National Park

Westland Tai Poutini National Park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Te Wahipounamu in South West New Zealand. It lies on the West Coast of the South Island in the Southern Alps, adjacent to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park and to the north of Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park.

Understand

History

Landscape

Flora and fauna

Climate

Get in

Fees and permits

Get around

Settlements
Ice climbers on Franz Josef Glacier

The following settlements lie close to the park:

See
Lake Matheson
  • Franz Josef Glacier - Perhaps the most accessible glacier in the southern hemisphere. At one stage it was possible to drive right up to the terminal face. However, the glacier is receding at present, so a walk is now necessary to actually get to the foot of the glacier.
  • Fox Glacier - Not quite as spectacular as the Franz Josef Glacier but not crowded with tourists either.
  • Lake Matheson - Tall mountains reflected in a mirror calm lake - sometimes - but a perfect postcard image when it happens.
  • Mount Cook and the other mountains - from the western side.

Do

Buy

Eat

Drink

Sleep

Lodging

Camping

Backcountry

Stay safe

Go next

gollark: Interesting.
gollark: =pup 1U to light-seconds
gollark: All osmarks.tk webservices, including the random stuff API, SPUDNET, incdec, osmarks.tk the website, the status monitoring UI, skynet and osmarks internet radio™ will be down once I start this, but osmarks.tk bots such as AutoBotRobot will continue functioning.
gollark: You know what, I will consume lunch FIRST, and THEN migrate osmarks.tk.
gollark: osmarks.tk may be going down for maintenence for a while today while I switch to caddy v2.
This article is issued from Wikivoyage. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.