Visit West Coast Region with Mighway

Westland Tai Poutini National Park

It is a place of dramatic contrasts with snow-capped mountains, steep forested slopes, glaciers and impassible gorges to the east of the fault and forested lowlands, lakes, wetlands and wide river mouths to the west.

The area is best known for the Franz Josef & Fox Glaciers where you can walk up the river valleys to see the terminal faces or take a guided trip onto the ice. Westland National Park is the backbone of Glacier Country and is part of the South West New Zealand UNESCO World Heritage Area.

Kahurangi National Park

In places it is an untracked wilderness, elsewhere a wonderful network of tracks lets you explore wild rivers, high plateaux and alpine herbfields, and coastal forests. Translated, its name has a number of meanings including 'treasured possession', an apt description of its wonderfully diverse natural and recreational values.

Kahurangi is a geologically complex area. Much of its rock is sedimentary, laid down in an ancient sea, then faulted, uplifted and scoured, in places, by glaciers. Parts of the region are limestone or marble, these areas are characterised by an abundance of caves, bluffs, natural arches, sinkholes and water-worn outcrops. New Zealand's oldest fossil (540 million years old) was found in the park.

Kuhurangi National Park was a location for Dimrill Dale and the outcrop south of Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Fox Glacier

Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe is longer and faster moving than the Franz Josef Glacier / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Its terminal face is just five kilometres from the village.

Fox Glacier is the name of both the glacier and the nearby village though the Maori names are different. Fox Glacier Weheka village, set into the forested foothills of the Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana with farmland close by, is more intimate than its bigger neighbour up the road.

There are plenty of options for activities close to the village including a number of ways to experience the glacier, quiet walks and beachcombing, or serious adrenalin pumping adventures.

At night you can walk along a bush path to a fern grotto to see glow worms on show.

Fox Glacier village is 3.5 hours drive from Wanaka, just under 2 hours from Hokitika and 25 minutes from Franz Josef village.

Hokitika Gorge

The Hokitika Gorge is 33kms from Hokitika. The vivid turquoise water surrounded by lush native bush is well worth a visit.

It is a short walk from the car park through a mainly rimu and podocarp forest to a viewing platform where the water has to be seen to be believed. An awesome viewing platform is just four minutes from the car park and this part of the track is accessible for wheelchairs. Carry on further to an impressive swing bridge and the granite rocks of the gorge's walls.

For good views further up the gorge, cross the swing bridge and when you come to the end, turn left (straight ahead leads to private farmland). The track continues for another 200m through the bush to another viewing platform with looking out to the gorge upstream of the bridge.