New Zealand's Remaining National Parks, From Nelson Lakes in 1956 to Rakiura in 2002

Established in 1956, the oldest park on this path covers about 1,019 square kilometers at the northern end of the Southern Alps, near the city of Nelson. Its page describes glacially carved lakes, beech forest and snow covered mountains, and names kaka, kakariki and the rare Cupola gecko among the species it protects.

Created in 1960 to mark the centenary of European settlement in Westland District, this park covers about 1,320 square kilometers on the South Island's West Coast. It climbs from the coastal wetlands of Okarito Lagoon to 3,498 meters at Mount Tasman, is best known for the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, and holds the only population of the Okarito kiwi, or rowi.

Founded in 1964 in the Otago and Westland regions, north of Fiordland National Park, it covers about 3,562 square kilometers of the Southern Alps and contains more than 100 glaciers. Its namesake peak, Mount Aspiring or Tititea, rises to 3,033 meters, and the park is part of the Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Site.

The first North Island park on this path was established in 1986 and covers about 742 square kilometers of lowland forest around the Whanganui River. The Department of Conservation describes it as the national park most closely tied to human settlement, and its page records significant Maori and early European heritage alongside North Island brown kiwi and the endangered blue duck.

Established on 1 January 1987, this West Coast park of about 430 square kilometers runs from the coastline to the peaks of the Paparoa Range. Its limestone karst holds cave systems such as the commercially run Metro Cave, the coastal Pancake Rocks and Blowholes, and the Paparoa Track, one of New Zealand's Great Walks.

Established in 1996, Kahurangi is the second largest of the country's national parks at about 5,193 square kilometers, reaching from the Buller River near Murchison to Farewell Spit in Golden Bay. Its page says it served as a Pleistocene ice age refuge and now protects around 80 percent of New Zealand's alpine plant species and some 18 endemic bird species.

Opened in 2002 as the country's newest national park, Rakiura covers about 85 percent of Stewart Island at roughly 1,400 square kilometers. It was formed from former nature reserves, scenic reserves and state forest, and it is a stronghold for the Southern brown kiwi, or tokoeka, with an estimated 15,000 birds, alongside yellow-eyed penguins.

Near the city of Whanganui, this native forest reserve of about 99 hectares was bequeathed by landowner G. F. Moore to the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society in 1962. A predator-exclusion fence completed in 2005 made it a mainland island sanctuary run jointly by the Bushy Park Trust, Forest and Bird and the local iwi Nga Rauru Kitahi, a private route to the same goal as the national parks.