Mount Aspiring National Park
Glacier-fed alpine wilderness of beech forest, braided rivers and old Māori travel routes.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mount Aspiring National Park, a day trip from Queenstown, treats the forest as a food store rather than a wilderness. It draws on the foods Ngāi Tahu elders named for the Makarora valley in eighteen seventy-nine, and on the old travel route over the Haast Pass. It also follows the surveyor Charlie Douglas, who fed himself on native birds while he mapped the valleys west of Mount Aspiring. Best heard under the beech trees, listening for birdsong.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Rob Roy Glacier Track
Alpine valley walk over a swing bridge to a lookout facing a hanging glacier and tumbling waterfalls.
Mirror Lakes
Twin oxbow lakes reflecting mountain peaks, with a backwards sign that reads true in the water.
Blue Pools Track
Glacier-fed river pools of startling blue, reached by swing bridges through silver beech forest.
Lake Te Anau
Vast glacier-carved lake with forested western fiord arms, gateway to the Milford Track.
Dart River
Glacier-fed braided river flowing through beech forest and alpine valleys into a lake's northern end.
Key Summit
Alpine knoll of tarns, bogs and boardwalks with sweeping views over Fiordland's Darran Mountains.