Lake Tekapo to Christchurch to Akaroa (23 - 25 Jun 09)

The journey from Lake Tekapo was just direct traveling. In the morning, I took some pictures at the YHA hostel and Roy – the backpacker from Hong Kong, helped me. It had been a long time since I don’t have to use any timer. I lazed around until noon time to get going for my next stop. The thing I remember vividly was that I waited around one hour or so for the Kiwi bus. Being a bit kiasu and I did not want to miss the bus, I reached the pick-up point way before the stated time. Then the time stated in the book is not really the time the bus would arrive at and lastly the pick up point is not an enclosed shelter, it is at the petrol station, open air one and it was here I caught my cold. Too windy. Not H1N1…


By the time I reach Christchurch, it was rather late, but at least I did get to go to book for a trip to Akaroa. Akaroa is New Zealand’s “little France”, meaning ‘Long Harbor” for its Maori name. It is a little village on the Banks of Peninsula situated in a sheltered harbor overlooking volcanic hills. I chose the scenic route to Akaroa for namely sight seeing and this bus traveled on a later time, hence can sleep more.

At Akaroa, you could join the harbor cruise to learn more about the rare Hector’s dolphin, seals, and penguins, etc and also see Volcanic Cathedral Cave, past’s relics and salmon farm. However, being on too much cruise makes me a bit not keen on it. I took a walk around the little village, exploring the colonial architecture, craft stores etc. I managed to see a penguin while I was wondering on the harbor.

I went to this “The Giant’s House” which had many concrete mosaic sculptures at the Garden. The house was built by the person that came from LINTON in England and is now home to artist Josie Martin. It was quite a walk up the slope and further into the street that I managed to find this place. Josie was the person that created the mosaic art garden giving life to it through her works. There was an Artists Palate Café in the garden but it was not opened during the winter time. And it was here, that I dropped my camera, but luckily I managed to push the lenses back to place and it was working fine up till now. Hee…

On the way back to Christchurch, we stopped by the Barry’s Farm. You could sample some cheese and purchased it if you like them, there is also honey on sale that was not very expensive as in those souvenir stores and the brand is Akaora honey, where you don’t find it in Singapore. And most important of all, I get to see New Zealand traffic jam.

Queenstown to Lake Tekapo (22 Jun 09)

This was another long journey if you were traveling straight to Queenstown. I had a little stopover at Lake Tekapo as I got some days to spare. In the morning, we traveled through the twisting bends of Kawarau Gorge and taking in the views of my last reminding days in New Zealand. We stopped at Cornwell again for breakfast, the place where the big fruits sculptures are and getting stock up for picnic at Lake Pukaki.

Lake Pukaki is one of the lakes formed by a glacial retreat. It is turquoise in color due to the light being reflected off the tiny particles of granite ground. But I don’t really find it that way, maybe I had slight color blind or the weather was not clear…

Along the way, you could get off and go to Twizel and make your way to Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain. This is a place that I missed too, however, I did manage to get to Lake Tekapo.

Lake Tekapo is a small village with no ATMs, but no fear, you can cash out some money at the petrol station. The village sits beside the lake and the jagged ridge line of the Southern Alps. I took a cruise along the lake and again, I find that it was just a lake with many snow capped mountains. Though the guide did explain this is Prince Edward Mountain, there is Mount Cook, but it all looks the same to me… This I felt is money not well spent, maybe I should have just walk some trails and get the information from i-site rather than finding some cruise to take.

You can find one the most photographed Church at Lake Tekapo, the Church of Good Shepherd. This is the first church built in the Mackenzie Basin. The church is a very small tiny building nia. Well, if you got vehicle, you could drive to a salmon farm and get cheap, fresh salmons... Argh, I don't have a car!!!

I stayed at the YHA hostel and the location is very good as it is situated just beside the lake. Most importantly I stayed at the legendary Room 7. This room has a Disney theme, so there are Disney characters on the wall. There are 2 heaters, hence it was very warm to sleep at night. Somemore, Room 7 also overlooks the lake, hence when you wake up in the morning, you get nice scenic view.

At this YHA, I get to know some nice traveling mates from Hong Kong and Taiwan. At night, we went for star gazing. Lake Tekapo is one of area that had the clearest night skies in the world. The clarity of the constellations is really magnificent and I could even see the milky way. The only light pollution is us taking the torch light trying to find a good spot to take photos. This is the only other place that I managed to see a milky way, the first is at the apple orchard farm at Napier.

Te Anau to Milford Sound to Queenstown (21 Jun 09)

Oh, this was quite an anticipated trip as Milford Sound is said to be one of the scenic place that you have to go if you were to travel to New Zealand. With hopes high and long journey ahead, first thing first was to get to the pick-up point, Pop Inn’s Café. Well, the café was a bit of a distance from the hostel that I were staying and I did not manage to shed off much load from my baggage, so it was quite a feat to carry all my barang and walk a good 15-20 mins. Luckily on the way, I met a very nice Kiwi ah peh that helped me carry some of my stuffs. There are really some nice Kiwi people out there…

It was a scenic ride along the way - there are massive glacial craved valleys, Homer tunnel, Mirror Lake that we passed through. The mirror lake reminded me of Lake Matterson, where we can get “View of the view”, well mirror lake is the river reflection like a mirror.

I had also become colder endurable, if it was just like a picture moment, then I would forgo wearing my jacket. But if a short walk was involved and more then 15 mins, then I would not be a hero, however we could still find some Caucasians that doesn’t seems to be afraid of cold, and wearing long sleeve is enough.

Well, another stop over was a walk forest layered walk to look at the Charsm, I seemed to forget what it is… hmm, well just another bush walk…

At Milford Sound, we board the Red Boat Cruise and lunch was part of the package. It was buffet style, so we could fill our tummy real full. Milford Sound was a glacier carved fiord with forest clinging to the cliffs that runs on both sides. There are waterfalls that cascade down some of the cliffs and the Red Boat Cruise will steer very close to it for a good photo to be taken. Maybe I had seen too much mountains, waterfalls etc, hence I did not find Milford Sound to be very magnificent or fascinating.

The Underwater Observatory was a bit disappointing too. True to the fact we could get very deep to the sea, but the fishes and corals seemed nothing to be faved about. Diving seems to be a more eye opening experience but that comes with a cost.

At the end of it was a direct long, long ride from Milford Sound to Queenstown stopping at the Pop Inn’s Café for snacks and toilet break. For this trip, I actually preferred the drive to Milford Sound than the fiord itself. Maybe Doubtful Sound will be a different experience, but I did not have a chance to do it.

Invercargill to Te Anau (20 Jun 09)

Early in the morning, I went for a walk around the city to view Invercargill, the most southern city, with also Scottish architecture. Before leaving, we visited museum and say bye to Tuataras, most important Henry, which is 125 years old. Oh, the hostel I stayed for the night is under YHA and the name is also Tuatara. In the museum it also featured the Maori culture and some sports like the vehicles that was screened in the movie, “World's fastest Indian” starring Anthony Hopkins.

Continuing on the scenic route bringing us to Riverton which is a fishing village. We took picture with a huge pupa shell, however we did not manage to visit a pupa shell factory as it was not open on Sunday during the Winter time. Instead, Skip brought us a pupa souvenirs shop but I am not sure if it was a good bargain.

Next we head to Tuatapere that passes through the farmland which lay between Waiau River and Rowallan forest. We got a chance to took a group photos of a whale squeezing everyone on top of it, luckily there is only 8 of us, hence it wasn't such a difficult feat. At the McCracken's Rest sign, acting according to the Kiwi book, when taking photos with the it, the person will show their “butt crack” and some of the sporty travel mates did just that...

We did not stop by the Clifden Suspension as Skip think it was just a bridge with nothing magnificent about it, though we did pass by. We went to see the trees that were being blown sideways.

At Te Anau, it was recommended to watch “Ata Whenua” that show case the stunning wilderness of the Fiordland. Well, I did not went to the cinema, but a travel mate Anna, did bought a DVD on it and I get to watch the 32 minutes documentary. I also get to experience the beautiful scenery of Lake Anau. I preferred the evening time as the sky was a bit red and the photos I took seemed a lot nicer...

Dunedin to Invercargill (19 Jun 09)

This part of the journey is to be one of the most scenic and long route as we were traveling through the Catlins. For breakfast, we went to a pub and restaurant that serves very nice sandwiches. And there is a very old dog with one of its legs a bit limping. Our first stop is at the Cannibal bay to see if there is any chance that we might be able to find some sea lion, but to no avail. And Skip mentioned that this was the first time during his trip here that there were no sea lion to be seem. Other than the sea lion, there are lots of sea weeds on the beach and Skip cut one open and told us it was good to store food... Ops, I can't really remember as I am not paying attention. However, with no luck in seeing any sea lion, we got to view rainbow, at least we got some consolation... Hee...

Next is the visit to Nugget Point and here is another light house. This lighthouse is perched atop huge rocks which the rocks resemble those like nuggets and here we could see some sea lion far down the hills. Skip also brought us to New Zealand's Niagara Falls, Mclean Falls, where we got to hike through the bush and forest to view it. I always find waterfalls to be magnificent, must be influenced by Jas liao, but it is really sight not to be missed... But I exhausted my batteries taking lots of photos of the rainbow, hence it is time to steal some photos from my traveling mates...

We stopped for a break at Porpoise Bay to have some ice cream and here our luck returned. We seemed a sea lion here. Moreover, at Curio Bay we managed to see a yellow-eye penguin, hoiho, returning to its nest after a day at the sea. There is also a petrified forest dating back to around 180 million years which will reveal itself during the low tide period. However, most of us are busy trying to get fairly close to the hoiho, so we kind of left out the petrified forest.