NEW ZEALAND ADVENTURES.........
FACTOIDS: • The National Icon of New Zealand is the Kiwi and the Fern is the National Emblem. • Captain Cook made his first New Zealand landfall in 1769. He stepped onto New Zealand soil at Kaiti Beach on 8th October 1769. • In New Zealand you may be permitted to drive at the age of 15 (between the hours of 6am and 10pm) • In New Zealand you must be 18 to buy alcohol from the whole -salers, a pub or a night club, but you must be 25 years old to by alcohol in a Supermarket. • Wellington is only the third largest city in New Zealand but retains its status as the capital City. (Many people assume Auckland is the capital, as it is much larger). • Per Capita, the City of Wellington boasts more Cafe’s than New York City! • South Island has an area of - 151,000 square kilometres, a population of 947,500 people and a temperate climate with snow in the mountain regions. • Blenheim is the best place to access New Zealand’s biggest wine-growing district. • Blenheim is one of the sunniest towns in New Zealand, boasting an estimated average of 2438 hours of sunshine a year! (we will let you know about that later!) • Murchison was founded on man’s hunger for gold and for land, while the forces of nature contributed to dramatic ranges and deep fast flowing rivers. • The early Maori knew Franz Josef as Ka Roimata OHine Hukatere – Tears of the Avalanche girl. • The Fox’s Glacier has a depth of up to 350 metres. The glacier terminates at 250 metres above sea level. It has 35-45 metres of snow fall per year. • New Zealand’s fourth largest lake, Lake Wanaka, sparkles on the edge of the town. • The beautiful resort on the shores of Lake Wanaka is the gateway to Mount Aspiring National Park, a World Heritage Area containing magnificent mountains, glaciers and lakes. • Queenstown has a well deserved reputation as the country’s Adventure Capital – White-Water Rafting, Sledging, Tandem, Parapenting, Flight Seeing, River Surfing, Canyoning, Heli-Skiing, Jet Boating and Bungy Jumping – to name but a few!! • The “Shot-Over River in the Queenstown District is the second highest Gold –Bearing River in history, second only to the Klondike River in Northwest Canada. Gold was found in 1862 and the river was so lucrative it yielded a record breaking 57.6 kgs of gold in just one day! The river yielded 12 oz of gold per yard of gravel. • The Remarkables Mountain Range (2343 m), around Queenstown is one of only two mountain ranges in the world that run truly North-South. The other mountain range is the Rockies. • With the Main divide of the Southern Alps at its backbone, the Whataroa Valley is the spectacular gateway to New Zealand’s most outstanding scenery. • The Tui is one of New Zealand’s Song Birds. • The Kereru New Zealand Pigeon is the world’s second largest Pigeon. • The Black Stilt is the Rarest Wading Bird in the World. • The Kea is a cheeky parrot that lives high in the mountains of the south island. They have a reputation for eating the rubber from hiking boots! • The Tuatara is a living dinosaur and has been here for 235 million years. Despite having a lizard-like appearance, the Tuatara has such different skeletal features that it belongs to an order of ancient reptiles all to itself. Today these reptiles are only found in New Zealand. The Tuatara does not like temperatures in excess of 28 degrees Celsius and have the ability to hibernate if the temperature drops below 5 degrees Celsius. On top of a Tuatara skull is a third eye. This is a complex organ which actually has a lens and a retina. It may be visible for the first 6 months of life and then gets covered over with opaque scales. This eye is thought to act as a pineal gland to detect seasonal changes by sensing the length of daylight and darkness. • The female Kiwi can lay an egg which weighs up to 20% of her own body weight! This is the highest proportion of any bird. To put that into perspective it would be a similar experience to a woman producing a 37 lb baby!! The average Kiwi egg weighs about 450 grams (which is a similar weight to 6 hen’s eggs).
Tuesday, 26 May 2009 08:04:51 (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)      Comments [0]  New Zealand