Новая Зеландия (english)

NEW ZEALAND What is the name of the country which has volcanoes andrivers of ice, deer and sea-elephants?It is New Zealand, called the Land of the Long WhiteCloud by the Maoris.New Zealand is an island country. It is made up of threeislands the North and South Islands and Steward Island, a small land mass justto the south of he South Island. Most of its people live in North Island, andthat is where you find big volcanoes like

Egmont and Tongariro and the boilingpools and geysers and lakes of bubbling mud. Auckland, Christ church andWellington are the biggest cities. Wellington is the capital.South Island is larger than North Island and has thehighest mountains. There you can find the snow-capped Southern Alps, rising3.764 metres to the tip of Mount

Cook named after Captain Cook, of course,because he visited the islands before sailing on westwards and discovering theeastern coast of Australia . South Island is very beautiful with its Alps and lakes,its glaciers and fiords. Have you ever heard of Milford Sound? That is one ofthe most picturesque of the fiords, with cliffs rising straight up out of thewater, the whole scene reflected in the water.

Down there, too, are theSunderland Falls, where water drops six hundred metres, making these falls oneof the highest waterfalls in the whole world.So you can see there is plenty to look at in NewZealand. Plenty of things to do for tourists, because New Zealand is alsofamous for its fishing, snow sports, mountaineering, sailing and hiking.The climate is pleasant at all seasons, without muchdifference between winter and summer.

New Zealand does not have the terribleheat of Australian summers the oceans temper its climate and the mountainsbring down quite a lot of rain.What do the people do? Farm mostly. Dairy products, meatand wool are the main exports. New Zealand ranks second only to Australia as anexporter of wool. There are many factories there too, with hydro-electricstations to produce the power for them.

North Island is where you find the Maoris, the finepeople who lived in these islands hundreds of years before the white man came.Most of them live near Auckland. The Maoris, a Polynesian people, are the aborigines ofNew Zealand. After long stays in Indonesia and the South Pacific, which theyexplored for many years, they made their great journey to

New Zealand about themiddle of the 14th century. They sailed in double canoes open to all weathers. Theyknew the winds, the ocean currents and the stars, and this earned them the nameof Vikings of the Sunrise. The capital of New Zealand since 1865, and one of itsbusiest ports, Wellington is at southern end of North Island, lying among hillson the western side of a natural harbour.It is the third largest city in New Zealand.Auckland the former capital is the first largest city,and

Christchurch is the second.The Maori name for Wellington Harbour means the greatbay of Tara. According to Maori legend, Tara was the first Polynesian settlerin this place. But Nicholson after a Royal Navy captain was the name given toit by the first British settlers, and it is still sometimes called by thisname.

In 1839 a British officer bought the site of Wellingtonfrom the Maoris he got it in exchange for blankets and some other unimportantthings. In 1840 the first settlers arrived and called their settlementBritannia. By 1842 there were 3.700 colonists in the settlement and Britanniahad become Wellington. The kiwi is rather an unusual bird found only in

NewZealand. It has no tail, almost no wings, and its nostrils are situated nearthe end of its bill. No other bird lays an egg so large in proportion to itssize. Its egg is about one fifth of its own weight. This is a tremendous size.In many countries. New Zealander. too, are known asKiwis, for the bird is also the symbol of people of the two islands.Forests of exotic pines near the centre of

New Zealand sNorth Island, cover an area of more than 160000 hectares. This is the largestsingle continuous area of planted forest in the world. New Zealand has morethan four hundred thousand hectares of planted forests.The most important wood is pine, which grows five timesfaster in New Zealand than in its native habitat in California,

USA. QUESTIONS1. What is New Zealand called by the Maoris?2. How many islands is New Zealand made up of?3. Are there many geysers in New Zealand?4. What climate has New Zealand? Is it pleasant?5. What do the people do?6. What does New Zealand export?7. What is the capital of the country?

What other bigcities of New Zealand do you know?8. Who are the aborigines of New Zealand?9. Who was Tara according to Maori legend?10. What unusual bird is found in New Zealand? What areNew Zealanders sometimes called in other countries?