Geography

New Zealand consists of two main islands - appropriately titled the North Island and the South Island. The four largest cities are Auckland and Wellington in the North Island, and Christchurch and Dunedin in the South Island. New Zealand has a wide variety of terrain within a relatively small area - mountains, lakes, rivers, fjords, gorges, glaciers and volcanoes.

New Zealand has a long coastline with many different beaches, the majority of which have golden sands. White-sanded, clear-watered beaches are predominant in the subtropical north. Black sanded beaches are also found in New Zealand - although typically on the western side of both the North and South Island. In the South Island there are extremely rugged coastlines and special geographical features like the blow holes at Punakaiki, also known as The Pancake Rocks.

The Marlborough Sounds and Fiordland coasts have narrow beach lines and deep bays with fantastic fishing. The diversity of landscape and vegetation means that in a short journey it is possible to pass through all of the following: sand dunes, vegetation, coastal forest, sub tropical rain forest, high rainfall beech forest, lowland swamps, open lowland swamps and bog, sub alpine grassland, scrub land, alpine herb fields and moor lands, alpine barrens of rock, snow and ice, dry beech forests and semi arid grasslands.

What greater diversity could one ask for!