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38
milford sound
FIORDLAND,
NEW ZEALAND
Visitors board boats or hike the
Milford Track, New Zealand’s most
popular multiday trail, to see Milford
Sound, a glacier-cut fjord whose
immense rock walls, innumerable
waterfalls, lush rain forests, and strik-
ing mountain peaks were described by
writer Rudyard Kipling as the “eighth
wonder of the world.”
Mitre Peak (5,560 ft/1,695 m) reflect-
ed in the waters of Milford Sound
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39
great blue »
hole
BELIZE
Blue holes are submarine sinkholes,
collapsed cave systems that became
submerged as sea levels rose after the
ice ages. The Great Blue Hole is found
on Lighthouse Reef, 43 miles (70
km) from Belize City, and at around
407 feet (124 m) deep is among the
world’s top scuba-diving sites.
The depth and clarity of the water give
the Great Blue Hole,, nestled within
Lighthouse Reef 43.5 miles (70 km)
from Belize City, its intense color.
40
okavango delta
BOTSWANA
Botswana’s Okavango Delta is one
of nature’s great anomalies: a vast
inland delta created by seasonal
floodwaters from the Angolan high-
lands to the north. From March to
June, what would otherwise be an
arid, desertlike landscape turns into a
verdant oasis that dramatically trans-
forms the lives of the region’s wildlife
and indigenous peoples.
At sunset, elephants come to drink in
Botswana’s Okavango Delta.