新西兰英语 247 The Coast-to-Coast Race

Yesterday was the famous Coast-to-Coast multi-sport race, from the Tasman Sea on the West Coast, across mountains, down a river, then on the road to the Pacific Ocean on the East Coast. It is called multi-sport because competitors have to be good at

新西兰英语 402 Coast-to-Coast Race

This year the 29th year since the race first began there were 800 competitors. Competitors run, cycle and kayak 243km; some do this in two days (Friday and Saturday) some do it in teams of two, while others prefer to do the individual Longest Day sta

新西兰英语 381 Growing Up in New Zealand

This month we saw some early results from a study of small children. The full report is at Growing Up in NZ About 7,000 children, born between April 2009 and March 2010, are in the study. They live in Waikato, or a particular area in Auckland. This i

新西兰英语 212 Soccer in New Zealand

The All Whites, New Zealands soccer team has a chance to play in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The last time a New Zealand team was part of the World Cup was in 1982. Soccer is a popular game to play in New Zealand, especially for school childr

新西兰英语 214 World Cup Soccer

Nearly everyone living in New Zealand must know about the All Whites win against Bahrain on Saturday evening. The stadium in Wellington, which holds 32,000 people, was full. About half a million people watched the game live on Sky and another 300,000

新西兰英语 365 Kiwi fruit disease spreads

The bacterial disease, PSA, which affects gold kiwi fruit has spread. Now tests show that 13 orchards have the disease and more orchards are in quarantine, waiting for the results of tests. This is very serious for the kiwi fruit industry. The Zespri

新西兰英语 129 Auckland Super-City Changes

Just two weeks ago, the Royal Commission recommended that Auckland should have one City Council for the whole of Auckland instead of eight smaller councils. See March 27th 2009. Today the government agreed that there should be just one council of 20

新西兰英语 286 Duck Shooting

From the first weekend in May until July, hunters in New Zealand are allowed to shoot ducks for sport. This is called the duck shooting season. Hunters have to get a licence and can kill only a limited number of ducks each day. There are only three t

新西兰英语 243 Sportsperson of the Year

Last night was the annual sports awards for the best sports man and woman for the year. Nominations included people from these sports: rowing, basketball, netball, cycling, sailing, surfing, cricket, rugby, football, Paralympics (for disabled people)

新西兰英语 136 New Zealand Place Names

The New Zealand Geographic Board is thinking about changing the names of the North Island and the South Island. The Board members think that these two islands should have Maori names instead. Certainly, North Island and South Island are not very inte

新西兰英语 123 World Potato Conference in Christchurch

The 7th World Potato Conference was held in Christchurch this week. This is the first time it has been held in New Zealand. A large number of scientists from many different countries attended the conference. New Zealand is a good country to host a po

新西兰英语 226 Climate Change Conference

Some New Zealand MPs who returned from the Copenhagen conference are disappointed. The Green Party MP, Jeanette Fitzsimons, said the conference was a failure because there were no legal promises. The conference decided to limit temperature increases

新西兰英语 370 Third explosion at Pike River coal mine

A third explosion happened this afternoon, two days after a second explosion. By Wednesday evening, police said that all miners now must be dead. Probably they became unconscious first through carbon monoxide poisoning and would have felt nothing. It

新西兰英语 330 SCF Company in receivership

South Canterbury Finance company went into receivership this week. The company owes $1.6bn which is a huge sum of money. It was a sad day for the company which had worked hard to stop this from happening. There are a number of interesting things abou

新西兰英语 379 Pike River Company in receivership

The company which owns the Pike River Coal Mine is in receivership. This is another disaster for Greymouth. If you have not followed this news story before, click on coal under Tags to listen to other items in December and November on the Pike River

新西兰英语 279 British Elections

Britain may like to find out about more our voting system in elections. Our system gives smaller political parties a chance to be part of the government. We have MMP which is one kind of proportional representation. If a party gets a proportion of th

新西兰英语 361 World Rowing ends today

The World Rowing Championships finished today after 10 very successful days. It was windy on two days but mostly the weather was good and today it was perfect. A large number of spectators attended. Today, 15,243 spectators came to see the finals and

新西兰英语 104 The Heat Wave

New Zealand is experiencing a hot summer this year. The East Coast of both the North and South Islands have had temperatures in the 30s. Central Otago has also had a heat wave and even Northland has had higher temperatures than normal. While Auckland

新西兰英语 224 Maori Flag

The Prime Minister, Mr Key, announced that a Maori flag was chosen for Waitangi Day. It will fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Parliament along with the New Zealand flag. The Maori flag is black, red and white with a koru design. The koru is a y

新西兰英语 360 Guy Fawkes Night

If you hear fireworks outside your house, its probably your neighbours celebrating Guy Fawkes night. Christchurch and possibly Wellington have had to postpone their public Fireworks shows because of heavy rain and wind but the weather looks better fo