CLIMATE
Publicerat 2013-03-27 23:48:00 i
Climate
In New Zealand they have their summer in December to February. So if you feel like you want to have summer all year around, stay in Sweden in our summer and then go to New Zealand in December. My sister did the worst thing ever! She went to NZ in the spring and came back after our summer, that meant winter a whole year!
Luckily NZ don’t have that much of a temperature different. In January the hottest it gets is around 14-19 degrees. And the coldest it gets is 5-11 degrees in the south and in the mountains. It never falls under 0 degrees and never gets over 30.
It rains a lot, especially on the west side. In the South Alps it rains 2000-5000mm every year. East of the Alps it rains 500-1000mm every year, and in the rest of the NZ it rains about 1000-2000mm every year.
sources: Biblis small pocketbook about NZ.
KIWIS
A Kiwi is a bird that cant't fly, they barely have any wings . It has the size of a chicken and they are most famous for being NZ "special" bird (they only live there). The Kiwi bird lays the biggest egg, if you compare with their size, in the world, 6 times up to a chicken's egg. The Kiwi birds are really rare and mostly active in the night. Sadly, they are endangered and their biggest threat right now is predation by invasive mammalian predators. They have also been threatend by the deforestation but now they mostly live in national parks.
There are 5 species:
-The Great Spotted Kiwi or Roroa.
-The Little Spotted Kiwi
-The Okarito Kiwi
-The Southern Brown Kiwi , Tokoeka, or Common kiwi
-The North Island Brown Kiwi
The Kiwi bird eats small invertebrates, grubs, worms and seeds but they can also eat fruit and eel etc. The Kiwi can locate insects and worms underground without seeing or feeling them, using their sense of smell! The mating season is from June to March and they only lay about one egg per season. A relationship can carry up to 20 years.
It takes 30 days for the egg to fully develope in the female and meanwhile she must eat three times her normal amount of food. But the last 2-3 days she has to fast for some reason.
HOLIDAYS & TRADITIONS
In NZ the most people are christians so they have the same traditions and holidays as us. They celebrate Christmas in December the 25 instead of the 24.Christmas ham, roast vegetables, homemade gravy and roast turkey are some traditional Christmas food that they eat.
In New Zealand it's summer in December so they often go to the beach or stays by the pool for a moment. That's alot different from what we are doing! We play outside in the snow or something like that, or we dig a hole in the ice and takes a swim in the ice cold water. We have to have alot of clothes on and I think that it would be really strange to celebrate Christmas in the summer. Christmas is meant to be in the winter and nothing else, I think.
sources: www.timeanddate.com/holidays/new-zealand/christmas-day
INTERVIEW
Publicerat 2013-03-26 23:58:00 i
Allmänt
I interviewed my dad.
If I say New Zealand, what’s the first thing that comes up in your head?
-Sheep and mountains.
Have you ever visit New Zealand?
-Yes, recently, in two weeks.
Why did you go there?
-I got a scholarship to visit NZ airforce that corresponds to the school like Sweden have in Halmstad, FMTS.
How was the trip down?
-Long with two longflights, it’s lucky there are TVs with many movies to choose from and good food!
What did you have for expertations of NZ before you went there? And why?
-I thought it was a “flat" country with many sheep, but it was way more rugged with hills everywhere, a very beautiful landscape and crooked roads. The highways didn't really exsist.
What did you get for opinion of NZ when you got there?
-It was way more beautiful then I expected, the animals and the nature was really different, it reminded me of the Jurassic Park.
What's the different between Sweden and NZ?
-It's more rugged, not much forest, mostly hills. There's many nice people, easy to get contact and talk with them.
The best thing with NZ?
-Nice people and beautiful nature.
Something bad?
-It's so far away... You're 12 hours away from Europe in contact.
What do you recomend to visit when you're in NZ?
-That you have alot of time, 3 weeks atleast to visit the South island.
Was it anything you'd like to see but you missed when you were there?
-Yes, I only was at the South island in 2 days.
How was the weather when you arrived? Was the weather the same all the time?
-I'd planed their latesummer because it's the best weather then, like Swedish summer 25-30 degrees and sunshine all the time.
How was the nature?
-Very beautiful, the plants looked like they were from the dinousaire time, big!
Did you get to know anything about the Maori people?
-Yes, I were at a "Maorievening" with a demonstration of culture, music and dance. Even "Haka" dance.
What did you learn?
-They take their language very serious and takes everything in "Maori" first and then on English... They are trying to preserve their culture.
What do you have for opinion about them now?
-I didn't now anything about it at first, just that they danced really strange. But it's a welcome dance that they did to see if you had aggressive intentions or came as friendly-minded and to see if you were going to be provoked by their aggressive dance.
Did you see a Kiwi bird?
-No they are really rare.
ANIMALS
Publicerat 2013-03-26 23:05:00 i
Animals
In New Zealand there are alot of different animals. There are no snakes but instead ther's alot of geckos and skinks, and I promise you that they are just as disgusting as the snakes... The skinks looks like a gecko but has a "longer" body so it's a mix of snake and gecko I think. There's also a "living fossil", the Tuataras. They lived when the dinosaurs lived and looks like dragons but is much smaller then they were, only 30-75cm long are the Tuataras. The Tuataras are meat eaters so you better watch out!
The
Bat is NZ only native land mammals but the country has 252 native birds instead, so it evens out. The national symbol of the country is the Kiwi bird, read about it
here.
NZ has a beautiful sea life and it starts already at the shore. At the shore there are many different kind of seals, both sea lions, fur seals, leopard seals and elephant seals. In the water, half of the world's whales, porpoises, orcas and dolphins lives there. So, many marine mammals lives there and that is something spectacular! I don't think that it's the first thing you think of when you say New Zealand, but now you know.
Of course NZ has alot of sheep also. They correspond 40% of all the sheep and lamb meat in the world. So if you drive on a road and sees a sheep there and another sheep there, you'll know why.
sources: google, lisa's sisters book and the book you have.
NATURE
Publicerat 2013-03-26 22:14:00 i
Nature
New Zealand consists of 30% forest, 15% farming and 50% of meadows and pastures! In the North there are most dairy farming and on the South island there are gold mines but 19000 of those are exhausted. Around the two bigger island there is a lot of smaller islands. In the South island (the biggest) only 1/4 of the people lives there. I don't know why it is like that but I think it's because on the South island there is the Southern Alps, so it's very rocky and hard to live on. NZ has a beautiful nature that reminds you of the famous movie “Jurassic Park” with big trees and ferns.
NZ has a lot of vulcanos that is both active and not. In only one (!) year they have 14000 earthquakes. That is a huge amount! NZ has also a lot of mountains, Mt. Cook (or Aoraki in maori) is one, it’s 3 745m high. This mountain is a great attraction if you're a tourist, and even for the people who lives there. In NZ they also have Hot water beach. It's a beach where you can dig a hole in the sand and it will fill up with really hot water. This is also a great tourist attraction and a really special thing that you probably only experience once in a life time.
sources: lisa's sisters book, the book you have, Biblis pocketbook about NZ and pictures from lisaplace.
PETER JACKSON
Peter Jackson is New Zealands most famous filmmaker. He was born 31 October 1961 in Pukerua Bay in Wellington. When Peter was a small boy he started to dream about doing movies after he saw the film King Kong. He got an super 8-camera from his parents and started to do fantasymovies.
When Peter was 20 years old he and his friends started to make their first long movie, Bad Taste was it’s name. In 1994 he did the Oscar nominided movie “Black Angels”. But the movie he's probably most famous for is the “Lord of the rings” that he did year 2001, 2002 and 2003, it was a triologhy. Those movies were a huge success.
He then did a new version of King Kong. That movie is about a huge monkey that gets to now a woman and becomes best friends with her. The movie is a really loving and sad movie, but you’ll have to see it buy yourself. Peter has also been involved with the newest movie of Tintin, where he produced it with ex. Steven Spielberg.
In the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 he is producing the movies “Hobbit”. This film is filmed in New Zealand and is played out “60 years before the Lord of the rings”. The hobbit Bilbo Bagger is on a journey with the wizard Gandalf and 13 dwarfs. Their goal is to take back their stolen treasure that is being watched by a dragon, Smaug. Sadly I haven’t seen the movie myself but I think that I will do that now, because it seems to be a really fun movie with an amazing nature.
A Hobbit hole.
sources: wikipedia and google.
MAORI PEOPLE
Publicerat 2013-03-26 10:32:00 i
Maoris
New Zealand was a place that was keept apart from the rest of the world in many million years. But 1250 AD the Maoris came to New Zealand. They were the first human people on the island and they came probably from the eastern Polynesia. To come to New Zealand they had to cross open sea in canoes, but luckely, they were good sailors. The first European to meet the Maori people was the Dutchman who "discovered" NZ. When the European ships became more normal in the 1800 the chief of the Maori signed a contract named "Treaty of Waitangi". It was a contract that fooled the Maori people and made them lose all their land and resources.
The Maori word means "normal", but now a days alot of the Maori people calls them selves tangata whenua, it means "the people of the country".
Nowadays there's not as much pure Maori people left because of the Pakeha, the mixed marriages of white and Maori people. Only 530 000 people has Maori in them.
The Maori does a thing, a performance for the NZ people and tourists. In the show they are doing wierd expresions in their face and if you laugh, they think you are humiliating them and you get kicked out. In the show you also get to see how they cock their food (the old way). They put in potatoes and fish in a big hole in the ground and lets it be there with warm stones for a couple of hours. It is called Hangi.
Their is a rugby team that is called "All Blacks". It's a Maori team that is perfoming a dance before every game. You can find the dance
here. The dance comes from the earlier generation, they used to performe the dance before every war.
Powhiri is a welcome "kiss" that they do when they are welcoming someone. They put their noses togheter just like the picture below.
The Moko is their famous tattoos that they have in their faces and body. The women only tattoos their chin area, the upper lip and the nostrils, this, I think, is because it's more feminine and that you should be able to distinguish males and females.
Sadly, most of the Maori people has problems with drugs and alcohol. People in the NZ are trying to help them but it's not an easy thing.
sources: lisa's sisters book, google, wikipedia, Biblis pocketbook, my dad and http://www.gymmuenchenstein.ch/stalder/klassen/hie/indigenous/maori.htm
NZ SCHOOL
The NZ school is mandatory in ten years, the ages 6-16. But most of the children completes their studies until they are 19, that's when their rights to go to school ends (5-19 is the years they have the right to go). In the schools they have school uniform bacause they are trying to be like the UK school.
Unlike Sweden, NZ schools doesn't quite have a school board, the individual schools have responsible for all the education content and what the school uses for material. This I think is pretty strange because, one school can learn the children about the christians while another school doesn't. And also, the school environment can be very different because of the various economy that the schools has. The schools economy depends on the parents, they have to pay voluntary contributions to keep the school economy good, but just like Sweden there is a certain amount of money that the school gets for every student.
In NZ school the religion lessons is something you can choose if you want to go to or not. That I think is something you shouldn't have because it's really "healty" to know about such a big all-round education.
sources: Biblis pocketbook about NZ.
SMALL FACTS
New Zealand is a 270 534 square kilometres country in the Oceania, about 160 miles south of Australia. It consits of two bigger islands, North and South, and then some other small islands. New Zealands capital is Wellington that is placed south in the north island and has a population around 382 000. But the biggest city in NZ is Auckland that has a population around 1,3 million. This I think is quite strange because most of the capitals in the world is the cities with the most people in, just like Sweden with Stockholm and the UK with London for example. The total population in NZ is 4,3 million and they speak english
(with an accent of course) and maori
(telling you more about here -> "Maoris") as their main language.
New Zealand was discovered by an deutchman and there's the name New Zealand, because there was already a zealand. In NZ they have monarchy and queen Elizabeth II has the power. The most popular sport is rugby but NZ is successfully in cycling, cricket, rowing, netball, sailing and so on.
There is a beautiful nature in NZ, snowy mountains, green forests, desert, rainforest and a barren coast. 30% of NZ is a reserve and a special "bird" lives there, the Kiwi.
sources: google and Biblis pocketbook about NZ.
