2 Best Sights in East Coast and the Volcanic Zone, New Zealand

Remote Te Urewera National Park is rugged and mountainous. This park's outstanding feature is glorious Lake Waikaremoana ("sea of rippling waters"), a forest-girded lake with good swimming, boating, and fishing. The lake is encircled by a 50-km (31-mile) walking trail, which takes three or four days to complete; it's a popular trek, and the lakeside hiking huts are heavily used in the summer months. The Department of Conservation Visitor Centre at Aniwaniwa is stocked with maps and informative leaflets; staff will also give advice about other park walks, like the one to the Aniwaniwa Falls (30 minutes round-trip) or to Lake Waikareiti (five to six hours round-trip). All trails pass through spectacular countryside of high, misty ridges covered with silver and mountain beech. Waterfalls and streams abound, and on the lower levels the forest giants, rimu, rata, kamahi, totara, and tawa attract native birds like the New Zealand falcon, North Island brown kiwi, kaka, and kokako. A motor camp on the lakeshore, not far from the visitor center, has cabins, chalets, and motel units; in summer, a launch operates sightseeing and fishing trips from it. Note that there are areas of private Māori land within the park, so be sure to stay on marked paths.  Be sure to check with  www.ngaituhoe.iwi.nz for alerts as some tracks are unstable especially after weather events.

Tongariro National Park is the oldest national park in New Zealand and the largest on the North Island. Gifted to the nation by the Ngāti Tuwharetoa people in 1887, this stunning mountainous region provided much of the dramatic scenery for the Lord of the Rings films, where its jagged volcanic landscape most famously stood in for Mordor. The park has a spectacular combination of dense forest, wild open countryside, crater lakes, barren lava fields, and rock-strewn mountain slopes. Its rugged beauty and convenient location, almost in the center of the North Island, make it the most popular and accessible of New Zealand's parks. Three volcanoes, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu, tower above its Central Plateau overlooking miles of untamed country that stretch to the West Coast on one side and the aptly named Desert Road on the other. The volcanoes are no sleeping giants: Tongariro is the least active, but Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu have both erupted in recent years. In 1995, 1996, and again in 2007, Ruapehu spewed ash, created showers of rock, and released lahars (landslides of volcanic debris) that burst through the walls of the crater lake. The park is famed for its hiking trails, but the weather can change very quickly here so be sure to be prepare for the day with good outdoor gear and plenty of food.