Egmont National Park is located south of New Plymouth, close to the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the mountain which dominates its environs, which itself was named by Captain Cook after John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont, the First Lord of the Admiralty who promoted Cook's first voyage. Taranaki has been the Māori name for the mountain for many centuries, and the mountain itself now has two alternative official names, "Mount Taranaki" and "Mount Egmont".
The park, established in 1900, is dominated by the dormant volcano of Mount Taranaki. The park receives massive annual precipitation which is essentially orographic in origin as moist westerlies moving inland from the Tasman hit Mount Taranaki and the adjacent Pouakai and Kaitake ranges and are thus forced to rise. Since the area has high annual rainfall and mild coastal climate there is a lush rainforest covering the foothills- this forest is nationally significant for the total absence of beech trees (genus Nothofagus).
Read more about Egmont National Park: Ecology
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or park:
“[The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal.... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children’s group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984)