Mountain homestead in the Southern Alps of New Zealand near Greymouth. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Mountain homestead in the Southern Alps of New Zealand near Greymouth. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | The Tans Alpine Railway Route. Arthur Dobson discovered the pass across the Alps in 1864. During this period gold was the prime export of New Zealand and the Canterbury Provincial Government pushed for a road to be built across Arthur’s Pass to open up the west coast goldfields. One thousand men toiled for a year, through a bitterly cold winter, to create the road. It was completed in 1865. The railway, however was not pushed through the Pass until 1923. It opened up the area to tourism and soon after the Arthur’s Pass National Park was created. The train still runs mainly for tourists, leaving Christchurch in the morning at 8:15 am and taking four and a half hours to reach Greymouth on the west coast. It returns one hour later thus taking a day for the spectacular and scenic day rail trip. The train crosses the Canterbury Plains and then goes up into the Alps through the Waimakariri Gorge. Six viaducts and 16 tunnels are used to help the train climb from the Canterbury Plains to the top of the Alps. Along the way up to Arthur’s Pass we see Lake Pearson and we cross the Waimakariri River which is a typical glacial fed river with a flat braided river bottom with many streams in it and huge gravel deposits from the melting glaciers. Ten small glaciers feed the Waimakariri River. The track has spectacular viaducts through the Waimakariri Gorge. Arthur’s Pass, a small touristy village is on the summit of the ranges at 920 metres (3,018 feet) and nearby is Mt Murchison at 2,400 metres (7,874 feet). From Arthur’s Pass the train descends steeply to the western side of the Alps through the Otira Gorge with an 8.6 km rail tunnel, the longest in New Zealand and the seventh longest rail tunnel in the world. The rail trip is listed as the sixth best in the world. The physical environment of the Alps is interesting and although the ancient Moa birds of the South Island were driven to extinction by the Maoris you will still probably see some Keas. This cheeky parrot bird is adapted to the alpine environment and is recognisable with its olive green feathers with orange undersides. They have sharp hooked beaks. Their “kee-aa” call is loud and clear. The forests of the Alps are beautiful and the trees are dominated by the local Black beech, Red beech and Silver beech trees ( Nothofagus solandrii, fusca and menziesii respectively.) Unlike their European counterparts these are all evergreen beech trees. The beech forests have little undergrowth. At higher elevation we will see alpine grasses and tussock and snow grass. The forest provide habitat for many introduced species – namely deer and Australian possums. On the wetter western side of the Alps you will see Totara trees with a huge bole which the Maori used for making canoes – Podocarpus totara; and Rimu trees related to the Huon Pines of Australia and similarly prized for furniture making- Dracrydium cupressinum. |
| 撮影日 | 2016-10-13 12:04:45 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| カメラ | DSC-HX30V , SONY |
| 露出 | 0.003 sec (1/320) |
| 開放F値 | f/4.0 |