In pairs, discuss with your friends possible sightseeing activities in Canada. Use the pattern.

Pattern:

A: Hi, …! It`s good to see you. I missed you terribly while you were touring ….How was it?

B: It was a dream come true: ….

A; No wonder, ….

B: It is said that ….

A: Wow, that sounds really good. … And did you by any chance visit …?

B: Do you mean…? I spent … and visited ….

A: It`s a nice place to see and to get a taste of ….

B: Did you know that …?

A: That`s incredible! How on earth did you …?

B: I was told that …. For instance, ….

A: The world we live in! There is much to wonder about in Canada. It`s not surprising that ….

B: Exactly.

 

4. Read and translate the text:

Australia

Australia is the 6th largest country in the world. Its territory is 7,686,850 sq km. It is only slightly smaller than the U.S. Australia is the sixth largest country in the world after Rus­sia, Canada, China, the USA and Brazil. Australia is located to the south of Asia, between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is the only country that occupies a complete continent. Australia is the flattest continent after Antarctica.

The original name was Terra Australis -The Southern Continent. Australia is a "down under" country.

Australia is a federal state. There are 6 states and 2 territories: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory with Canberra, the national capital. Each Australian state has its own government and capital. Outlying territories administered by Australia include Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Nauru, Norfolk, and Papua and New Guinea.

Australia can be divided into 3 regions: the Eastern Highlands /or the Great Dividing Range/, the Central Lowlands, and the Western Plateau. A long chain of mountains, the Great Dividing Range, runs along the Pacific Ocean. Mt. Kosciusko is the highest peak of Australia. It rises to 7,328 ft /2230m/. The land is 3% forest, 2% arable, and 1% pasture. It is also the driest continent in the world. About one third of the land is desert. Australia has 4 main deserts. Some dunes measure 320 km long. The Great Barrier Reef is a garden under the sea. It runs from 10 to 100 miles off the east coast for 1200 miles. It has 400 species of corals.

Rivers fill with water only during the rainy season. The Darling River is the longest/2,739km/.It is dry in winter. The Murray is 2589 km long. The largest lakes are Lake Eyre and Lake Torrents. Urulu National Park is a tourist attraction. Fertile farm land lies between the coast and the GDR. The plains are wheat-producing areas. Cattle stations reach the desert.

Australia is known for its marsupials /150/, including koalas, kangaroos, spiny anteaters and the platypus. Native birds /700/ include the world's only black swans. Large flightless birds are the emu and the cassowary. Kookaburra is the best known bird. The platypus and the echidna are among the strangest Australian animals. They are the only mammals that hatch their young from eggs. Platypus lives only in Australia.

Native plants are acacia /700/ and eucalyptuses /500/. They grow to 85 m. There are palm shrubs and palms like trees.

Flowers include lilies, tulips, Iris and Chrysanthemum.

Australia has many national parks, where wild life is protected. Kakadu National Park is Australia's largest national park. In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park 1500 species of fish live.

Large cities are Sydney / pop.3,5 million/ and Melbourne /pop. 3 million/.

The climate ranges from tropical monsoon in the north to temperate in the south. Wet season is January-April. In the centre the climate is very dry. Summer is December through February and winter is ne through August. Winter temperature is 2C. Frost and snow occur in the Australian Alps and Tasma­nia. Annual rainfall is 40-60 ins in the far north. The wet seasons bring storms. In 1974 a cyclone levelled Darwin. Floods plagued many parts of Australia.

 

Questions:

1. What is the capital of Australia?

2. Where is Australia situated?

3. What is the population of Australia?

4. Is it hot in January in Australia?

5. What side do they drive in Australia?

6. What is garden under the sea?

 

5. Read and translate the text:

New Zealand

What is the name of the country which has volcanoes and rivers of ice, deer and sea-elephants?

It is New Zealand, called the Land of the Long White Cloud by the Maoris.

New Zealand is an island country. It is made up of three islands: the North and South Islands and Steward Island, a small land mass just to the south of the South Island. Most of its people live in North Island, and that is where you find big volcanoes like Egmont and Tongariro and the boiling pools and geysers and lakes of bubbling mud. Auckland, Christ church and Wellington are the biggest cities. Wellington is the capital.

South Island is larger than North Island and has the highest mountains. There you can find the snow-capped Southern Alps, rising 3.764 metres to the tip of Mount Cook (named after Captain Cook, of course, because he visited the islands before sailing on westwards and discovering the eastern coast of Australia).

South Island is very beautiful with its Alps and lakes, its glaciers and fiords. Have you ever heard of Milford Sound? That is one of the most picturesque of the fiords, with cliffs rising straight up out of the water, the whole scene reflected in the water. Down there, too, are the Sunderland Falls, where water drops six hundred metres, making these falls one of the highest waterfalls in the whole world.

So you can see there is plenty to look at in New Zealand. Plenty of things to do for tourists, because New Zealand is also famous for its fishing, snow sports, mountaineering, sailing and hiking.

The climate is pleasant at all seasons, without much difference between winter and summer. New Zealand does not have the terrible heat of Australian summers; the oceans temper its climate and the mountains bring down quite a lot of rain.

What do the people do? Farm mostly. Dairy products, meat and wool are the main exports. New Zealand ranks second only to Australia as an exporter of wool. There are many factories there too, with hydro-electric stations to produce the power for them.

North Island is where you find the Maoris, the fine people who lived in these islands hundreds of years before the white man came. Most of them live near Auckland.

The Maoris, a Polynesian people, are the aborigines of New Zealand. After long stays in Indonesia and the South Pacific, which they explored for many years, they made their great journey to New Zealand about the middle of the 14th century. They sailed in double canoes open to all weathers. They knew the winds, the ocean currents and the stars, and this earned them the name of Vikings of the Sunrise.

The capital of New Zealand since 1865, and one of its busiest ports, Wellington is at southern end of North Island, lying among hills on the western side of a natural harbour.

It is the third largest city in New Zealand.

Auckland (the former capital) is the first largest city, and Christchurch is the second.

The Maori name for Wellington Harbour means the great bay of Tara. According to Maori legend, Tara was the first Polynesian settler in this place. But Nicholson (after a Royal Navy captain) was the name given to it by the first British settlers, and it is still sometimes called by this name.

In 1839 a British officer bought the site of Wellington from the Maoris; he got it in exchange for blankets and some other unimportant things. In 1840 the first settlers arrived and called their settlement Britannia. By 1842 there were 3.700 colonists in the settlement and Britannia had become Wellington.

The kiwi is rather an unusual bird found only in New Zealand. It has no tail, almost no wings, and its nostrils are situated near the end of its bill. No other bird lays an egg so large in proportion to its size. Its egg is about one fifth of its own weight. This is a tremendous size.

In many countries New Zealanders are known as Kiwis, for the bird is also the symbol of people of the two islands.

Forests of exotic pines near the centre of New Zealand's North Island cover an area of more than 160000 hectares. This is the largest single continuous area of planted forest in the world. New Zealand has more than four hundred thousand hectares of planted forests.

The most important wood is pine, which grows five times faster in New Zealand than in its native habitat in California, USA.

 

 

Questions:

1. Is New Zealand an island country?

2. What is the kiwi?

3. What is the capital of New Zealand?

4. What are the biggest cities of New Zealand?

5. What do the people do in New Zealand?

Життя студентів вищих навчальних закладів

1. Read and translate the text: