Home > Categories > Books > Reference > WILD WALKS - Exploring Natural New Zealand review
New Zealand is blessed with many extraordinary wild places. Most are only a short distance from towns or tourist centers and give us the chance to experience the best of New Zealand's unique plants, rare birds and wildlife. This book is for the tourist or holidaymaker with an hour or three to spare, who likes to take short walks into the magic of wilderness.
This new and updated edition of Wild Walks covers the North and South Island, and includes walks close to such landscape icons as Mt Cook, Milford Sound and Rakiura (Stewart Island). It takes only minutes from the car to walk into the cathedral forest of Whirinaki in the Urewera National Park, enjoy the squabbling gannet colony at Muriwai, near Auckland, or wander through the surreal and stunning Otago landscape at Sutton Salt Lake.
These 100 easy walks range from 20 minutes to three hours return and are suitable for people of all ages. Easy to follow maps and directions are given, and the book is illustrated throughout with stunning photographs by the author and Nic Bishop.
Keep Wild Walks in the glove box of your car: it's your passport to New Zealand's untouched wild places.
Product reviews...
Do you enjoy bush walks? Is nature photography (be it wildlife, landscapes, plant life etc) a hobby of yours? Then this book is one I'd strongly recommend that you add to your collection!! There are 100 different treks, located all around NZ and varying in walking time, from about 20 minutes to 3-4 hours, described throughout this book. Each one is shown with a map of its location, and 1 or 2 photos of either the flora or fauna found around that area, or occasionally a photo of the general location. A pity there weren't a few more photos of the landscape, as I find they are great to give a real feel for each location itself, and make it a lot easier to get an idea what kind of area you're heading into than just the description of the walk. This was really the only 'let down' about this book, I thought - too many photos of the animals or plants and not enough showing the wider view, but that?s just my opinion. After reading through Wild Walks, I am now really champing at the bit to go off exploring our wonderful country with all its beautiful bush walks, estuaries, wildlife etc!
The descriptions of the walks were quite detailed, giving you a full idea of what you'd be encountering during the trek, and, scattered in amongst them, were many snippets of NZ history, and information about the different plants and wildlife you'd be coming across in each location, which made for quite an interesting read as well.
Definitely a must if you plan to go exploring NZ's more 'natural' side, and one I know will be coming with me any time I head out of town!
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