Nelson Tours

Cruise in style

The "Baby Bentley" Chrysler 300C

Explore Nelson with us in smooth, quiet, luxury in one of our well‐ appointed Chrysler 300 sedans.

Discover Nelson

We'll take you places you'll love. We can do short or long tours. One person or ten. Choose one of our tours or call us to arrange something just for you.

Call us free on: 0800 10 88 55

The Land

New Zealand's natural environment.

Geology

Hundreds of millions of years ago New Zealand formed part of a large land mass when today's major continents such as America, Africa, Antarctica, Asia and Australia were connected. With the continental drift, which is still continuing, New Zealand departed from the east coast of Australia and is at present sited on the edge of the Australian Tectonic Plate where the Pacific Tectonic Plate meet. The result is that New Zealand still has active volcanoes such as Ruapehu and Tongariro with thermal regions like Rotorua, Wairakei in the North Island and Hanmer in the South Island. Subterranean pressures have created mountainous regions; the Southern Alps is a notable example.

NZ natural features

Flora

Due to its isolation, New Zealand has developed some unique plants and trees over millions of years. The delicate but hardy Mount Cook Lily is a fine example of the flowering variety. The Kaka Beak is one of the most colorful flowering plants but now is almost extinct in the wild. The tree-clad countryside contains prodacarps such as Kauri, Totara and Miro with Rim, Kahikatea and Matai being found in areas with the greater rainfall. Pohutukawa is referred to as New Zealand's Christmas tree as it has red blossoms around December/January with the Southern Rata carrying a mantle of red flowers.

NZ birds

Fauna

The fauna of ancient New Zealand is uncertain, except to state that the discovery of fossilized trilobites, which may date back to 400-600 million years ago, is evidenced by this discovery of these fossils found at 600 meters above sea level. Trilobites were an ancient crustacean found at the time when ancient sea shellfish were developing. The more recent times at 2 - 13 million years ago development of both flightless and flighted birds occurred. The various families of Moa's were among these. The largest of the Moa's were some 4 meters in height, but they were hunted to extinction. The New Zealand icon, the kiwi is another of the flightless birds, as are the Takahe and Kakapo, these are found only in New Zealand and nowhere else in the world. The are many flighted birds, such as the Tui, Fantail, Kea and a great number of sea birds including the Albatross. The land based animal can be described as mainly reptilian and the oldest of these would be the Tuatara, the others are lizards, frogs, and includes a bat which is seldom seen. In recent times i.e. the last 100 - 1,500 years introduction of game and domestic animals have occurred with the result that some of these have become pests, and eradication of these have become a priority. Deer, Possums and the Ferret family is a prime example of these, and rabbits and the Marsupial Wallaby are also included.