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11. Read the sentences and guess which are true and which are false. Then read the text and check your answers.

1.This land is a place of earthquakes and living dinosaurs.

2.New Zealand is located in the Indian Ocean.

3.The coldest month is January and the warmest is July.

4.The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand.

5.The Maori people had a written language until the Europeans arrived.

6.The eighth wonder of the world is Lake Taupe.

7.Wellington is the capital of New Zealand.

8.Auckland is the national park in New Zealand.

The Land of the Long White Cloud

Imagine a place where the constellations of stars above your head are different from those that you have ever seen, where the night sky can glow with strange swirling lights, and where the cold of winter comes when summer arrives in Russia. Imagine a place where there are volcanoes, rivers of ice and hot lakes of extraordinary colours, and where forests are full

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New Zealand is a country of islands located in the Pacific Ocean. The North Island and the South Island are the main ones, and there are number of small ones, some of which are hundreds of kilometers from the main islands. The country’s nearest neighbor is Australia, which lies more than 1,600 km northwest of New Zealand.

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In Kaikoura, hazy mountains reach down to the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean – and you can swim the dolphins! The guides tell you how to entertain them – splash around, make strange noises through your snorkel, and amuse them by snowing what terrible swimmers humans are. Kaikoura is also a great place for whale watching.

The Waitomo Caves were made by a river. The best part of a visit to this amazing place is a journey along the river in a boat. You travel silently through the darkness until suddenly you see thousands of little stars above you. Actually, these stars are lights; they belong to very small animals, roof of the caves.

The most unusual place in New Zealand is probably Rotorua, a city in the northern part of the North Island. It was built in the heart of a volcanic

crater. Here the air smells of eggs. And steam and hot water explode out of

the air. Rotorua is also the centre of Maori legendИand history and the place where traditions and culture are kept alive. Beautiful carvings, artwork,

the hot ground. The hot water lakes in Rotorua are of extraordinary col-

ours: yellow, green and even orange! And there are pools of natural hot water where you can swim.

music, dance, and traditional buildings Д- all from part of the Maori heritage. The Maori people had no written language until the Europeans ar-

Near here is the Lady Knox geyser, which can shoot water 20 meters into

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In the south-west of the South Island, where land and sea meet, is one of the most beautiful places in the world – Milford Sound. No wonder Rudyard Kipling called it ‘the eight wonder of the world’. This is a place of breath-taking views, hundreds of waterfalls and fairy-tale wildlife. It’s also a place where seals, dolphins and penguins are frequent guests. Mil-

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ford Sound is the wettest place in New Zealand – and one of the wettest places in the world. About 7 metres of rain fall hear each year.

The isolation of New Zealand from other lands allowed the survival of animals and plants from the time of the dinosaurs. Ancient tree ferns, plants that produce spores rather than seeds, and primitive relatives of pine trees still grow in the forest.

The oldest tree in New Zealand is Tane Mahuta. It’s a Maori name which means ‘Lord of the Forest’. Nobody knows for sure how old it is but it is estimated to be between 1250 and 2500 years old!

The beautiful pohutukawa tree has red flowers at Christmas time, and people call it ‘the New Zealand Christmas time’.

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The kiwi is the country’s nationalбbird and emblem. It’s an unusual bird. It has nostrils at the endиof its beak and it can’t fly. New Zealanders also like to call themselves Kiwis.

Before the firstСhuman beings arrived, there were many flightless birds in New Zealand. The biggest of them was the moa. It was about 3 metres tall and weighed about 250 kg. Now it is extinct.

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