The review of the trip to New Zealand

I'd been to New Zealand for half and a week this winter, and here are some articles that I found on the Internet for introducing New Zealand. Later after the chemical test is all over, I may post some reflection on.

"It was one of those days...so silent, so still, you almost feel the Earth itself has stopped in astonishment at its own beauty." —Katherine Mansfield
At the very heart of the North Island is a lake. It is the largest in New Zealand, and it is named TauponuiaTia. Appropriately, Taupo, as it is called, is somewhat heart-shaped—and it beats.
A long time ago, back in the mists of myth, Maui, the Polynesian trickster, caught his largest fish ever here. He told his brothers, "Be gentle with this fish until it is dead. Then it will make a fine dwelling place for many." (It was a big fish.)
Alas! You know how these stories go. The brothers ignored Maui's advice and hacked and whacked into the fish, which convulsed and died.
But the heart of the fish still spasms. Lake Taupo, the result of volcanic eruptions some 2,000 years ago, still pulses with hot waters deep within. Geysers, mud pools, and live volcanoes, in fact, are found throughout the North Island. A mountain named Ruapehu sent up grand ash plumes and lava in 1997, ruining the skiing season.
Oh yes, we ski on volcanoes here. While being aware and wary of the considerable dangers of dwelling alongside mountains prone to tantrums and pools that boil over, the people of the North Island have always taken advantage of the quirks of the land. The original settlers, Eastern Polynesians now known as Maori, cooked in the hotter waters and bathed in the warm springs.
From the time of Maui's brothers onward, humans have despoiled and abused the shining bright land, but we have also made gardens and built many structures of beauty. There are vineyards, farms, and bush-clad hills close to the cities—one of which, Auckland, is built atop seven dormant volcanoes, evidence of the characteristic Kiwi "she'll be right" attitude of perennial optimism.
Virgin forests still can be seen on the island, and there is unspoiled central plateau grandeur in Tongariro National Park. In the semi-tropical far north—the farther south you journey here, the colder it tends to get—you can still see huge kauri trees, alive long before humans arrived. And everywhere along the coast are beaches and reefs and islands less damaged than elsewhere in the world.
The Maori believe that when the Earth Mother was torn asunder from the Sky Father, she had just given birth. As her baby suckled at her breast, she was forced to face the underworld, to prevent her from trying to rejoin the Sky Father. The baby, resenting the darkness, became Ruaumoko, the god of earthquakes and volcanoes. He is particularly present on the North Island.
We have learned to walk more gently on our islands because he is there.

It's copy from the National Geography Magazine http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/articles/1031north_island.html