Hokitika Gorge and the surrounding Hokitika Gorge Scenic Reserve are a major tourist destination some 33 kilometres (21 mi) or 40 minutes drive inland from Hokitika, New Zealand. Since August 2020, a second suspension bridge over the Hokitika River at the gorge provides the opportunity for a round track.
Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspended in meltwater making the water appear cloudy, which is sometimes known as glacial milk.
When the sediments enter a river, they turn it grey, light brown, iridescent blue-green, or milky white. If the river flows into a glacial lake, the lake may appear turquoise in colour as a result. When appearing as any shade of blue, the colour is most commonly caused by the Tyndall Effect, with the particular hue determined by suspended particle size. When flows of the flour are extensive, a distinct layer of a different colour flows into the lake and begins to dissipate and settle as the flow extends from the increase in water flow from the glacier during snow melts and heavy rain periods. Examples of this phenomenon may be seen at Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Emerald Lake, and Peyto Lake in Canada, Gjende lake in Norway, and several lakes (among others, Nordenskjöld and Pehoé) in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park, and many lakes in the Cascade Range of Washington State (including Diablo Lake, Gorge Lake, and Blanca Lake).
Instagram tourism or selfie tourism is the phenomenon by which an area sees an increase in tourism, often to the point of overtourism, due to exposure on social media and the resulting desire created in others to recreate the images they've seen on Instagram or TikTok. Studies in 2018 and 2023 found that social media exposure affected tourism and connected it to the sociological concept of conspicuous consumption.
Instagram tourism is often seen in areas which lend themselves to the taking of selfies with a background of picturesque natural beauty or vibrant city scenes. It has been characterized as a superficial consumption of rather than sincere interest in a place, and those engaging in it characterized as "people coming to get a photo of the photos they've seen".