Trio NZ Trip

It’s been three days since I got back from NZ and as promised, I will update on the details of my 13 days of holiday. Bear with me as this s going to be a very long post.

16/11

Supposed to be on the plane to Christchurch at 7.45 am but arrived at the airport an hour on the dot which the check in counter has already closed. Too bad, so I and ciktie had to reschedule our flight for the next day.

17/11

Board the flight to Christchurch in the afternoon. Luckily everything went well and we arrived at Christchurch at 11 at night. The flight doesn’t take that long it’s just the time difference between Australia and New Zealand that made us arrived so late. Actually the flight only took 3 and a half hour. Haizum picked us up from the airport and we called it a day.

18/11

We were supposed to get out at 8.30am but we ended up waking at 8.30am. So settled the car renting and all and we head out to city. Walked around Christchurch city, Cathedral Square and Garden city (I think that’s what the place was called as it was a garden in the middle of the city). Nothing much to see except for the architecture of the building which Diana enjoyed (well, being an architecture student she would enjoyed it). Then we head to Rick mall. It’s just like normal shopping mall with nothing new. Nobody feels like walking as everybody seems dreadfully sleepy. We thought of going back to Haizum’s place but decided to stop at the Botanical Garden on the way back. There was this beautiful rose garden at the botanical garden. It’s nearly the end of spring but the flowers are still blooming. After what seems ages, we head home and doze off..hehe..We woke up at 6.30pm and pick up our rental car and jln2 kat area around Uni of Canterburry as it was our last day in Christchurch. Took some photos, went back home, cook dinner and off the bed for we want an early start tomorrow.

19/11

Today is the first day of our road trip around NZ. We drove to Lake Takepo which was breathtakingly beautiful. Subhanallah..indahnya ciptaan Tuhan. Even though the sun was shining brightly, it was still cold due to the wind. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect the cold weather so I only brought my thin sweater which did me little good. We are heading south to Queenstown today but there was a couple of pit stop on the way. After Lake Takepo, we stopped at Lake Pukaki which was similar to Lake Takepo but we took photos still. After a couple of hours drive, we stopped at Wanaka and went to the Puzzling world which gives me dizziness and slight headache in the illusion room. Before really heading to Queenstown, we had another stop which was the cute ‘pekan’ of Arrowtown. The shops were soo cute but not cute enough to make us stay for the night. It was already 6.30pm but the sky was still bright and there was still daylight. So, as our backpacker was close to the city, we walked to the city and check out the city.

20/11

Nothing much was on the schedule today but everybody woke up late and we went out at noon and check out the activities they offered here at the information centre. We booked for the rafting and jetboat for tomorrow went to the skyline gondola. The gondola was like the one in Langkawi except that it was lower and has a luge on the top. So, we got on the gondola and we can see the whole Queenstown from up here and Lake Wakatipu (seriously, they have a lot of lakes down here). The scenery again was breathtaking. Well, New Zealand is all about the scenery besides the xtreme activities. Then all of us had two rides down the luge and took more photos. After all that, we had nothing to do so we took the car and drove up to Glenorchy. There’s nothing much here except again for the scenery which was basically mountains and water.

21/11

We booked the noon session for the jetboat and rafting so ended going out around 11.30 or so. The jetboat was a 60kmph ride between the canyons on the Shotover River. The famous thing about this jetboat ride was the 360 degree turn that all of us enjoyed so much. Later on, I and ciktie get change for rafting while Diana went back to city for shopping. The journey to the starting point for rafting was gruesome, a very narrow road with high cliffs on the side. Seriously scary, I don’t think anybody will survive that fall. Once the arrived at the starting point we got into groups of 8 and the journey starts. We had to follow orders from our guide and there was this rapid called mother section that we had to lookout for as there were 6 rapids in a row. When we were at the mother section, the raft nearly flipped upside down on the 4^th rapid called ‘the toilet’. Luckily, everybody acted as fast as lightning and it didn’t happen and everything after that went smoothly until we reached

the end of the journey. That night my hand ached so much due to all of the rowing.

22/11

Today is the last day in Queenstown, and again we woke up late. (We always seemed to wake up late here and I don’t know why). Diana and I are doing the canyon swing today. It’s like bungee except that after the fr

ee fall we will swing across the canyon. On the way to the place we were watching videos of people that did the swing and there is this one girl that keeps on laughing at the people on the vids. Well, that girl went on first and I came second after her. I actually want Diana to do first but the insisted that she wants to do after so I end up doing it first. My jump was buruk hell, you guys can watch it on the video. Takut?? I was scared but then I think this is once in a lifetime experience so I just went on with it. Then, back to Queenstown and shopping!!!hehehehe..

23/11

We are heading the west coast today to Franz Joseph. The weather was fine on the way but it started to rain as we were approaching Franz Joseph. We booked the 3pm slot for Glacier hiking but due to the heavy rain and the conditions were dangerous they had to cancel it which left us stuck in this small town with nothing to do. In the end, we just went around the place and went back to our backpacker and watch dvd there.

24/11

Today was another early morning as we had to drive up all the way to Picton to catch the ferry to Wellingon. We were supposed to stop at an old city but due to the heavy rain we just keep on with the journey. Nothing done today just a travelling day as nearly the whole day we were in the car. We arrived at Picton at 4pm and waited to get on the ferry which departed at 7pm. Arrived in Welly at 11pm, had dinner and another day gone.

25/11

The itinerary for today was jln2 kat welly which has nothing much to see just another city. But, we went to Te Papa museum which was quite a large museum with many things in and jln2 around the city. Later that afternoon we went to Oriental bay which was very windy there which make the area very cold and Lastly, we went on their cable car whch cost only $1 one way and only had 4 stops. That’s all for Wellington.

26/11

We started our journey up north today to Rotorua but stops at Taupo on the way to see the Hukka Falls. The Hukka Falls is like another rapid on a stream which is so fast that it is a source of energy to the area around it. Arriving at Rotorua around 6pm, we walked around the place to the Government Garden, Lake Rotorua and the sulfur smelling thermal spring. The thing was so smelly at first we thought that it was the wastewater treatment plant as we saw the sign board a bit outskirt but then we realized it was the thermal spring/geyser as they call it.

27/11

First stop for today was a Kiwi orchard called Kiwi 360 about 35min drive from Rotorua. We went tour around the orchard wth the tour guide explaining the process from growing the plant to harvest and market. We were given some samples of kiwi fruit which has 2 varieties; the gold kiwi and green kiwi. The gold kiwi is sweeter than the green kiwi that we usually ate. But I still prefer the green kiwi. After that we drove back to Rotorua to Te Puai; a Mouri cultural village where we watched their cultural performan

ces and have an insight of what their daily lives look like. Here I got to see a real life kiwi animal but as they are scared of light and noise no picture ca be taken. Last thing for the day, we went to the zorbing area but we didn’t do it as we didn’t bring xtra clothes. All of us didn’t know that we were going to get wet in tha ball so decded to do it the next day.

28/11

We were due to go to Auckland today with some stops on the way. Firstly we stopped at the zorbing place with our swim clothes and zorb. It was fun as we were tumbling in the ball as we go down hill. Then, we drove up to Coromandel hoping to have a swim at the beach unfortunately we can’t swim and ended up going to the Hot water beach where we can dug up sand near the beach and hot water will come out. As we arrived nearly high tide, we didn’t do the digging but went into the pools that have been dug up by somebody else and been left behind. So, we did get to feel the hot water. Once we had lunch we went to Cathedral Cove. This was a 45 min hiking from the parking lot which was worth it as the scenery was fabulous. For your information, the cove was the entrance to Narnia in the Prince Caspian film. Stayed there to play with the wave and then drove up to Auckland.

29/11

It was already nearly the end of our trip. We went up Auckland sky tower and get to see whole Auckland from up here. They even have glass floors that we can see the ground from. Seriously scary..hehe..Nothing much, Auckland is just another big city like Sydney. Which is very serabut and was glad that we didn’t stayed long. At 12 we drop off our rental car at the office and went to airport to catch the plane back to Christchurch. That evening, we had dinner at Mum’s with Ami and Hazel. Mum’s is a Japanese and Korean restaurant and the food there was fabulous and cheap. I want to go and dine there again. To finish off the day, we watched the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

30/11

The last day of holiday, we went shopping for souvenirs in the morning and head to airport at noon to fly back to Brisbane. Back to reality..hehe

Overall, the trip was tiring but I enjoyed it a lot as I did some crazy stuff there and it was lots of fun. I would recommend people to go there and do some of the crazy activities that they provide.