New Zealand

Tasman Glacier, the largest of New Zealand, offers to its visitors a beautiful sight. Ice blocks collaps from its southern face, and remain afloat in a dark gray lake. While walking around the lake, these icebergs give us an image of a polar excursion.

The visit will continue up to the Pukaki lake, an attractive place of this glacier valley due to the turquoise color of the water.

The Tasman glacier Location

The glacier:

Tasman glacier lies at the Aoraki/Mount cook base. It’s a 20 kilometers long glacier, and the thickness is up to 600 metres. This scope make it the biggest glacier in New Zealand. 20,000 years ago, Tasman glacier encompassed other glaciers, like Hooker, Murchison, Muelle, and formed an ice tongue of over 115 kilometers long. It is this ice tongue that dug the contours of the valley, allowing Pukaki lake and Tasman lake to appear gradually as the glacier surface decreased.

The Tasman glacier topology (Interactive Map)

The front of the Tasman glacier, and the Tasman lake at the base

A sight of Tasman lake. The glacier is on the left

An Iceberg factory:

Tasman Lake is located at the glacier base. The glacier fragments fall into the lake, and take the appearance of large icebergs. Because the temperature of the lake water does not exceed two degrees Celsius, the icebergs melt slowly. Only 10% of the iceberg is visible, the rest is under water surface.

Drifting icebergs

An iceberg, on the background the Aoraki/Mont Cook

A walk that looks like a polar expedition

Color changes: white to gray:

Tasman Glacier, when sliding the mountain, is loading the black rock chunks snatched in the mountains. These black particles accumulate in the ice and will stay on board of the glaciers when they are floating in the lake. During the melting of the iceberg, the particles concentration increases, and changes the ice coloration. Thus, a newborn iceberg will appear white, while an older iceberg would have a dull gray color. At the end of melting, the particles of rock are giving a milky gray to the Tasman lake.

An apparently pure ice when melting…

… can form strange particle clusters.

Color changes: gray to blue:

A river rises in Lake Tasman. This river carries particles of rock from the lake, which also give to the river the gray color. As the rock particles have a higher density than water, they sink to the bottom of the Tasman River before the water flows into Lake Pukaki. The water ice, when it arrives in the Pukaki Lake, is free from all impurity, and colors the lake water in an incredible turquoise blue.

The Pukaki lake early morning

Pukaki lake and turquoise water

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New Zealand offers to its visitors varied and colorful landscapes. The pure white glaciers rubs turquoise blue or emerald green mountain lakes. An intense geothermal activity that reveals from soil gray mud pools, or sulfured water springs they brings small particles that colors the ground to yellow…

The pictures in this series, issued from a grandiose landscape or a small detail of a curious source, are, therefore, also rich in color.

Hauru falls

Riwaka valley night view

Oxidized vegetation in Rotorua

Desolation around Rotorua

Sunset on Lake Taupo

The Kepler Track in the Fiordland National Park

Vegetal rainbow

Fern spared by the sulfur vapors

Colored flow in the Orakei Korako

Plants and colored ground

Detail of colored deposits

Emerald lakes on the Tongariro volcano

Red crater of the Tongariro

Snow zebra on Mount Tongariro

Forest atmosphere in the Fiordlands

Franz Josef Glacier reflection in Peter’s pool

Mud explosion

Colored detail

Green algae

Yellow detail

Pink detail

Boiling gray mud

Small bubbles in a stream

Abel Tasman Park

Tongariro National Park

Dying branches

Lake Taupo

Beach of Abel Tasman Park

Mountains in the Kahurangi National Park

Meybille Bay

Franz Josef Glacier and its reflection

Icebergs in Tasman Lake

Bubbles in the ice

Inside Franz Josef Glacier

Lake Manapouri

Fiordland National Park

Rainbow between the rocks

Atmosphere in a forest of Fiordland National Park

Lake Te Anau

Waterfall in the Fiordland National Park

Violet mushroom

Lake Manapouri

Pebble river

Hill piercing the clouds

Lake Pukaki

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The Kauri (Agathis australis), also called Kaori, is an endemic tree from the family of the conifer that can be found in the northern part of New-Zealand. Kauris exist in New-Zealand for ages. Some fossils had been discovered and have been estimated to 220 millions of years old.

The Waipoua forest location, New Zealand

In the past, very thick forests of Kauris covered the northland. We estimate that before 1800, the Kauris forests used to occupy more than 12,000 square kilometers. However, after the overexploitation of the forest by the western population after their landing on this archipelago, only 4% of the initial number of these legendary trees has been spared. The survivors are now mostly located in the Waipoua forest.

The size of this tree and its straightness make it the ideal wood to build boats. Especially for the boat masts. Its sap, called « gum », was also taken and used to make varnish for the wood pieces, glue and also fire starter. Once the sap taken, the tree was dead. Despite its huge size, the Kauri is very fragile because of its very thin roots. The use of synthetic products instead of the sap helps to save the Kauri.

The few remaining Kauris can be more than 50 meters high and the trunk more than 3 meters large. These characteristics make it one of the most majestic trees on Earth. Even if it’s difficult to estimate the age of these trees, some recent studies conclude that the oldest trees are 2000 years old. Nowadays, preservation and protection plans are controlled by the DOC (Department of Conservation). The Kauris are referenced; some footpaths are marked to prevent hikers to step on weak tree roots.

Huge kauri in the Waipoua forest

Remains from dead kauris

Kauri bark

Tane Mahuta, the lord of the forest:

One tree, the Tane Mahuta (“lord of the forest”), has an important place in the Maori cosmology because it is the son of Papatuanuku (the earth Mother) and of Ranginui (the Sky Father). Papatuanuku and Ranginui were living entwined, deeply in love. They were physically so close of each other that the universe was smothering.

Tane Mahuta, the fruit of their love, grew up with strength and separates his parents, the earth and the sky and allowed the surroundings to live within the light. The atmosphere has also been created by this event as well as the life as we know it today. Tane Mahuta, with its 51.2 meters height and with a circumference of 13.77 meters is really the lord of the forest. Its age is estimates to 2000 years old.

Tane Mahuta, « Lord of the forest »

Other interesting Kauris:

Among the other interesting trees, Te Matua Ngahere, is considered by some scientists as the oldest tree on earth within the humid forest category. It would be about 4000 years old. Te Matua Ngahere has a colossal trunk with a circumference of 16.41 meters and 5.2 meters large. Sometimes it happens that the Kauris trunks are splitted in several pieces. That’s the case of the “Four sisters”, a tree composed of 4 trunks growing in the Waipoua Forest.

Te Matua Ngahere, the widest trunk Kauris

Te Matua Ngahere

Four sisters, composed of 4 trunks

Four sisters

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