Ian O’Malley is a student at the University of Connecticut, and an ISA Featured Blogger. He is currently studying abroad with ISA in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Fiordland National Park is as majestic as it is hard to get to. It took almost two hours just to get into the park! Amazingly enough, Milford Sound (the last point of the park) is only about 50 kilometers away from Queenstown, adventure capital of the world. But the rugged mountain range that stretches throughout the park is too treacherous to build any roads across. That makes it almost a four hour drive to the next settlement, Queenstown. So, Fiordland is pretty far, but what do you expect when you’re already in one of the most remote areas in the world? Fiordland is an absolutely beautiful stretch of land in the most southwesterly point of the south island. The day I went was sunny, warm, cloudy, rainy, cold, and everything in between. There were massive trees all over the place, and it reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, especially when it was cloudy and rainy. A range of different land features and hikes can be found in Fiordland. I only visited a fraction of them.
It felt the most rugged in the best way possible. Out of the national parks I’ve been at in the south island, Fiordland offered some of the most majestic views and scenery.
The world awaits…discover it.