The land of the long white cloud
THE LAND OF THE LONG
WHITE CLOUD Imagine a place where the stars above your head are different from those that you have ever seen, where the night sky can glow with strange 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 of strange trees. This land is a place of earthquakes and living dinosaurs, where the people were once fierce warriors. This place is not from a fairy tale - it is New Zealand. New Zealand 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 kilometres from the main islands. The country's nearest neighbour is Australia, which lies more than 1,600 km northwest of New Zealand. The North and South Islands are separated by the Cook Strait, which is 20km wide at its narrowest point. It's never very hot or very cold in New Zealand because it is surrounded by water.The coldest month is July, and the warmest is January.