Great Smoky Mountains National Park

In 1923 a Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association was established with Willis Davies as president.

On December 13, 1926 the Southern Appalachian National Park Committee recommended the establishment of two parks, Shenandoah in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. In 1934, Great Smoky Mountains National Park was finally established, preserving unique mountain landscape for future generation.

The park houses the best and most complete collection of historic log buildings in the eastern US.

More than one hundred modest homes, gristmills, one-room schoolhouses, barns, outbuildings and churches remain to tell the story of the European settlers who began to arrive here in the late 1770s, as well as their descendents who lived and worked here until the national park was established in 1934.

Five different forest types dominate the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and together they support 130 species of tree and 4000 other plant species.

The Smokies are something of an eastern rainforest in that they received more than 80 inches of rainfall annually. The park is also home to more than 1800 black bears, 80 Canadian elk, and some 100,000 living organism, making it one of the most diverse collections of flora and fauna in the Southern Appalachian.

Its biological diversity is the major reason the park was named an International Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Shenandoah National Park

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a segment of the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. They extend from Pennsylvania through parts of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The Blue Ridge spreads through several national forests. The Shenandoah National Park in northern Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park also lie in the Blue Ridge.

Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Mountains, Northern Virginia, US, was formed in 1935. The Park consists of 193, 357 acres with tree-covered mountains, trails, streams, waterfalls, and trout-filled pools and it is noted for its scenery, which affords some the widest views in the eastern states.

It is heavily forested with hardwoods and conifers: wildlife includes deer, foxes and numerous birds. Besides scenic overlooks, the park offers camping, fishing, horseback riding, hiking, nature trails and bird watching.

Forest consists of 1200 kinds of vascular plants.  A segregation of forest communities occurs because of differences in elevation, exposure and moisture:
Chestnut oak forests
Red Oak forests
Cove hardwood forests
Yellow poplar forests

Hundred of plant species including one hundred species of tree – now flourish inside the park. As the forest reestablished themselves so too, did Shenandoah’s wildlife. Today, more than 200 species of birds and 50 species of mammals exist in the park.

The skyline Drive north-south highway extends for 105 miles through the park and offers an opportunity to view the scenic valley as well as the Blue Ridge Mountains, Massanutten Mountain and the Allegheny Mountains.
Shenandoah National Park

Cradle Mountain – Lake St Claire National Park

Cradle Mountain – Lake St Claire National Park is part of the larger Tasmanian World Heritage Area. 

Mountain peaks, dank gorges, pristine lakes, tarns and wild moorlands extend triumphantly from the Great Western Tiers in the north to Derwent Bridge on the Lyell Hwy in the South.

Cradle Mountain, in the north of the park, is 85km from Devonport and 181km Launceston. Lake St Clair, in the south is 180 km from both Hobart and Launceston.

Cradle Mountain was first climbed by an Austrian, Gustav Weindorfer, 1910.The national park was declared through his efforts.

Cradle Mountain has an extraordinary range of wildlife.
Cradle Mountain – Lake St Claire National Park

Abel Tasman National Park

The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of the Department of Conservation’s eight identified Great Walks and the only coast track of its kind in the country.

The park blankets the northern end of a range of marble and limestone hills extending from Kahurangi National Park; its interior is honeycombed with caves and potholes.

Along with its bays, lagoons and sparkling beaches, the park contains marble gorges and a spectacular system of caves in it surged interior.

Its northern coastline, running westward from the township of Marahau, consist of tree-covered headlands and islets separated by bays with golden sand beaches.

Abel Tasman National Park is one of the most beautiful, rising to a maximum altitude of just 1156m, protecting 23,000 ha of some of the finest coastal scenery and beaches in the country.

The park is characterized by regenerating scrublands and lush coastal broadleaved forest with vines, perching plants, tree ferns and an abundance of the country’s national plant, the silver fern.

It was opened in 1942 after the tireless efforts of conservationist and resident Perrine Moncrieff; it was named after the Dutch navigator Able Tasman who first sighted New Zealand in 1642.
Abel Tasman National Park