ParkNew Zealand · NZ
Kaimai-Mamaku Forest Park
The Kaimai-Mamaku Forest Park — managed by New Zealand's Department of Conservation as the Kaimai Mamaku Conservation Park — is a vast, forested wall of ranges that folds between the Bay of Plenty and the Waikato. Stretching from the dramatic Karangahake Gorge in the north down almost to Rotorua, it is stitched together by more than 360 km of walking and tramping tracks that wind through some of the country's most botanically unusual bush. What draws people in is the park's dual character: it is simultaneously a wilderness of kauri groves and ridgelines, and an open-air museum of New Zealand's gold-mining and kauri-logging past. Visitors come to walk a historic saddle route over the Kaimai crest, to follow the original rails of the country's oldest bush tramway, or simply to listen for tui and bellbirds echoing through forest where the mighty kauri meets its southern limit.