A very beautiful postcard from New Zealand, showing the great milky way! The view is from the “Aoraki-Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve”. It is a gold-rated dark sky reserve, in recognition of the quality of the almost light-pollution-free skies of the Mackenzie Basin. A dark-sky preserve is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that is kept free of artificial light pollution. The purpose of a dark-sky preserve is generally to promote astronomy. The building next to the milky way is called “The Church of the Good Shepherd”.

A postcard showing Kakapo(owl parrot), a kind of bird that could be found in New Zealand only. This kind of bird is flightless, nocturnal. It is the world’s only flightless parrot, the heaviest parrot, nocturnal, herbivorous. Some research says that this kind of bird is possibly the world’s longest living bird. The Kakapo is critically endangered, in 2012, there were only 126 known individuals.

The first stamp shows the Mitre Peak. It is the ironic peak on the South Island of New Zealand. The peak is named due to its shape, after the mitre headwear of Catholic bishops. The stamp is released in 2010.

The second stamp is from Local Motifs series in 2011. This stamp shows Trout Fishing (鱒魚) there.