New Zealand Photo Blog
Yep, I got all my New Zealand photos sorted and hosted on photobucket now. I've posted them here mostly in thumbnail form. So click below for a massive post with lots of pictures:
Here we are, the intrepid explorers.
Basically, we started on North Island: Auckland-Rotorua-Taupo-Wellington. Then we took a ferry over to South Island's Picton-Nelson-Greymouth-Queenstown-Dunedin-Tekapo and finally finished in Christchurch.
New Zealand is, of course, one of the most picturesque places in the world. So let me get the pretty pictures out of my system first.
These pictures are:
First row - 1. Queenstown's Lake Wakatipu at sunset, 2. Some ducks at the edge of Lake Wanaka, 3. Mountain ranges leading to Mt Cook
Second row - 1. View over the Pancake Rocks, 2. Some random waterfall, 3. Shotover Canyon
After spending the first day in Auckland city, we set off on the bus tour. The bus picked us up from the Auckland YHA and started on our drive to Rotorua. First tourist stop was the Waitomo caves, which are famous for their glo-worms. The depths of the caves are accessible by boat and we were able to see thousands of the little buggers spread out across the ceiling of the cave. The light from the glo-worms attracts insects for food, but in times of famine, these worms will simply crawl over to their neighbours and cannabalise each other!
Next day it was on to Taupo. First dose of excitement for me was to jump off a perfectly good platform towards the Lake Taupo. I can honestly say that I wasn't scared at all. Being scared requires one's brain to be on, and mine wasn't. I just jumped...then the brain turned on, and I was hurtling towards the water accelerating at 9.8m/s2 and thinking, "WHAT AM I DOING HERE???". Later on, we dropped the girls off so they could go jetboating and Mike and I killed time by hiking 6 kms up the Huka River (below right) in search of a waterfall.....and back again. Doh! Blame the map, it was not to scale! The waterfall looked nearby, but we ended up walking and walking, thinking it would be just around the corner. Much frustratration and compass reading took place before we eventually found it.
We got into Wellington late the next day with just enough time to scout the city centre. I was fortunate enough to visit my parents' university situated on a large hill and surrounded by botanical gardens. (below)
From Wellington, we needed to cross the Cook Straight to get to Picton. There are air services to cross the straight, but we were booked on the 3 hour ferry. Oh boy, I've never seen this many sick people in one place since knocking Eric out and taking him to E.R! The journey was very rough (below left) and we were tossed around a fair bit. The ferry was pitching and rolling and throwing us around. I loved it, but Alda wasn't so lucky (below right). She ang her sick buddies were huddled in the ship's centre and trying not to vomit themselves to death. I alternated between being out on the "Sundeck" getting drenched and staying to try comfort her. Su slept most of the way, and Mike was outside with me most of the time laughing at the sea like a pirate!
Just a quick one for the town of Greymouth. We got to tour a beer factory (Monteith's Brewery), followed by a free beer session and an all-you-can-eat BBQ.
Now, we've been in New Zealand for a whole week. It's Friday the 27th of October and we pull into Franz Josef - home of the glacier. This is definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. A spectacular glacier surrounded by rainforest. Does it get any better?
Of course it does! And that's why we strapped on our jackets, boots and ice crampons and followed the local guides up the slopes of the glacier. It may seem pitifully obvious to say this, but a glacier is made of ice. That's not so easy to visualise until you're standing on one. I expected it to be in smaller pieces; broken up amongst the rocks and trees, but it is literally one huge solid chunk! It's amazing. We carved our way up the glacier for a couple of hours and managed to get to a nice vantage point. It was only halfway up the glacier though. *sigh* I would have loved to go further.
Queenstown
It was a long journey from Franz Josef to Queenstown, but we would make the most of it by spending the next four nights here. The first thing that struck us was how much our hostel seemed like a prison. The rooms were so bare and cramped. Four nights here, ouch! Queenstown is a crazy place full of tourists. Half the town's population at any given time is made up of tourists. It is an 'adventure haven', and just about any sort of adventure sport can be found here. Walking through the streets, there are skydiving, bungee jumping, trekking, skiing, jet boating and parasailing offices everywhere. Look upwards, and you'll most likely see a parachute or hang-glider. Look towards the hills, and there will some people abseiling, rock climbing or riding a luge. CrZy!
The first day was quite relaxing for us. We needed a short rest from the past few days of travel. But I still managed to drag Mike and Su on a hike around Lake Wakatipu (above centre). The bush trail was beautiful and I'm sure Su enjoyed it despite whinging about a sore ankle. It should be obvious, but we weren't able to complete the entire 84 km loop around the lake that afternoon! This is also the day I bought Little Lamby, my wool shirt, from the Kathmandu store.
On the second day, we hopped on board a different bus (sigh) to travel the Fiordlands. This is a region of glacial valleys carved aeons ago and home to New Zealand's most dramatic scenary, or so we were told. The scenary was certainly spectacular from Te Anau through to Milford (above right). Part of the tour was a boat ride out into Milford Sound, where we saw the steep glacial valley walls encircling the sound. There were plenty of waterfalls - the boat even went under a couple of them! The picture below (centre) shows one of the waterfalls. I didn't take a picture of the other one because I was standing under it! A pod of playful dolphins also swam alongside our boat at one stage.
Third day in Queenstown was the most crazy of all. Mike tried to go skydiving again, so he went off by himself, only to return later because it was postponed due to high winds. The girls decided to go rock climbing and us boys went jet boating through Shotover Canyon (where we experienced another dose of incredible scenary). When we got back, the girls were nowhere to be found, Mike tried to go skydiving again, so Little Lamby and I decided that we would try to climb Queenstown Hill.
Now, I was mistakenly under the impression that my parents climbed this "hill" when they were here. Actually, they did not. Little did I know that Queenstown "Hill" would actually be 907m high, with a steep uphill grade all the way up! As I sweated and cursed my way to the top, I kept wondering how the heck my mum managed to make it all the way up. Finally, Little Lamby and I reached the summit and posed for photo (below left).
The craziness did not end there. After we got back down the hill and back into the city, I ran into Mike, whose skydiving was now cancelled for good! To console him, I suggested we go do something else, even though Little Lamby and I were already pretty tired. So we got a couple of mountain bikes and cycled around the Lake. The cycling was fine....until we left the cycle track somehow and stumbled upon a walking track. Being young and foolish, we tackled it too (below right)! The track was so rutted, cobbled and steep in places, it was crazy. Whenever I was in the front and hit the brakes going downhill, the rear tyre would lift slightly. I was so worried that Mike would rear-end me and send me over the hill. The result of Lamby and me rolling down the hill into the lake would have been worthy "Jackass" material! We decided to give up when we found that we were carrying our bikes more than riding them! I was also exhausted.
We left Queenstown on Halloween to go to Dunedin. It's a very pretty town (below left) with plenty of Scottish influence. Coincidentally for Halloween, we went on the Cadbury factory tour. No pics were allowed inside the factory, but I managed to snap a pic of an Oompa Loompa a little later (below right)! :P After dinner at a rather ordinary Japanese restaurant, I managed to drag the group into doing more walking. We went to Baldwin Street - the World's steepest street according to the Guiness Book. I had to bribe the others with free beer to get them to climb up the street, but we did it in the end. The first photo in this journal was taken at the top of Baldwin Street.
Two days left. Onward to Tekapo, another beautiful lake. We went horse trekking around the lake in the afternoon, and that was another highlight for me (below left). I love horses, but had never ridden one before. Amazingly, controlling a horse in real life is almost exactly like how it's done in PS2's "Shadow of the Colossus!" /geek
No lake visit would be complete without me taking the others for a hike around it. This time, the twist was that we brought a box of fireworks. The moon was out and we found a nice spot for some pyros. The fireworks were pretty tiny, but we had a blast blasting them! It was also quite dark (below right) and I was the only one with torches. I gave the maglite to Su and used my LED to help me light fireworks. Su managed to break my torch despite my warnings not to drop it! Argh! Women! After replacing the bulb, we finished off the fireworks, cleaned up thoroughly and went back to sleep.
Christchurch
My photos end here because I was too tired to snap photos in Christchurch. It was our last night in New Zealand and we partied it up! Dinner at a French restaurant (Voulez-vous des escargots?). But the night was just about to start! We found a pub with $3 beer/cocktails/shots. THAT'S UNHEARD OF! It's a pity Mike isn't big on booze and Alda doesn't even drink....Oh well, Su and I made the most of it. She started enjoying herself a little too much and put her feet up, only to have the bouncer tell her not to. A few drinks later, she was horizontal on the couch, and the bouncer came back to tell her to sit up, much to her annoyance! So I prop her up on my shoulder and generously "help" her finish her vodka mix. Of course, being the gentleman that I am, I also realised that I should buy her another drink in return, so off I went to get some bloody mary's, beer and smirnov....and ended up drinking them all with some help from Mike! :)
By now, the night was not so young anymore and happy hour was almost over. We managed to half carry Su back to her room - while trying to explain to her that I couldn't just go around beating up bouncers because she didn't like them.
The next morning we got on a plane and made it back home. Phew!
Here we are, the intrepid explorers.
Basically, we started on North Island: Auckland-Rotorua-Taupo-Wellington. Then we took a ferry over to South Island's Picton-Nelson-Greymouth-Queenstown-Dunedin-Tekapo and finally finished in Christchurch.
New Zealand is, of course, one of the most picturesque places in the world. So let me get the pretty pictures out of my system first.
These pictures are:
First row - 1. Queenstown's Lake Wakatipu at sunset, 2. Some ducks at the edge of Lake Wanaka, 3. Mountain ranges leading to Mt Cook
Second row - 1. View over the Pancake Rocks, 2. Some random waterfall, 3. Shotover Canyon
After spending the first day in Auckland city, we set off on the bus tour. The bus picked us up from the Auckland YHA and started on our drive to Rotorua. First tourist stop was the Waitomo caves, which are famous for their glo-worms. The depths of the caves are accessible by boat and we were able to see thousands of the little buggers spread out across the ceiling of the cave. The light from the glo-worms attracts insects for food, but in times of famine, these worms will simply crawl over to their neighbours and cannabalise each other!
Next day it was on to Taupo. First dose of excitement for me was to jump off a perfectly good platform towards the Lake Taupo. I can honestly say that I wasn't scared at all. Being scared requires one's brain to be on, and mine wasn't. I just jumped...then the brain turned on, and I was hurtling towards the water accelerating at 9.8m/s2 and thinking, "WHAT AM I DOING HERE???". Later on, we dropped the girls off so they could go jetboating and Mike and I killed time by hiking 6 kms up the Huka River (below right) in search of a waterfall.....and back again. Doh! Blame the map, it was not to scale! The waterfall looked nearby, but we ended up walking and walking, thinking it would be just around the corner. Much frustratration and compass reading took place before we eventually found it.
We got into Wellington late the next day with just enough time to scout the city centre. I was fortunate enough to visit my parents' university situated on a large hill and surrounded by botanical gardens. (below)
From Wellington, we needed to cross the Cook Straight to get to Picton. There are air services to cross the straight, but we were booked on the 3 hour ferry. Oh boy, I've never seen this many sick people in one place since knocking Eric out and taking him to E.R! The journey was very rough (below left) and we were tossed around a fair bit. The ferry was pitching and rolling and throwing us around. I loved it, but Alda wasn't so lucky (below right). She ang her sick buddies were huddled in the ship's centre and trying not to vomit themselves to death. I alternated between being out on the "Sundeck" getting drenched and staying to try comfort her. Su slept most of the way, and Mike was outside with me most of the time laughing at the sea like a pirate!
Just a quick one for the town of Greymouth. We got to tour a beer factory (Monteith's Brewery), followed by a free beer session and an all-you-can-eat BBQ.
Now, we've been in New Zealand for a whole week. It's Friday the 27th of October and we pull into Franz Josef - home of the glacier. This is definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. A spectacular glacier surrounded by rainforest. Does it get any better?
Of course it does! And that's why we strapped on our jackets, boots and ice crampons and followed the local guides up the slopes of the glacier. It may seem pitifully obvious to say this, but a glacier is made of ice. That's not so easy to visualise until you're standing on one. I expected it to be in smaller pieces; broken up amongst the rocks and trees, but it is literally one huge solid chunk! It's amazing. We carved our way up the glacier for a couple of hours and managed to get to a nice vantage point. It was only halfway up the glacier though. *sigh* I would have loved to go further.
Queenstown
It was a long journey from Franz Josef to Queenstown, but we would make the most of it by spending the next four nights here. The first thing that struck us was how much our hostel seemed like a prison. The rooms were so bare and cramped. Four nights here, ouch! Queenstown is a crazy place full of tourists. Half the town's population at any given time is made up of tourists. It is an 'adventure haven', and just about any sort of adventure sport can be found here. Walking through the streets, there are skydiving, bungee jumping, trekking, skiing, jet boating and parasailing offices everywhere. Look upwards, and you'll most likely see a parachute or hang-glider. Look towards the hills, and there will some people abseiling, rock climbing or riding a luge. CrZy!
The first day was quite relaxing for us. We needed a short rest from the past few days of travel. But I still managed to drag Mike and Su on a hike around Lake Wakatipu (above centre). The bush trail was beautiful and I'm sure Su enjoyed it despite whinging about a sore ankle. It should be obvious, but we weren't able to complete the entire 84 km loop around the lake that afternoon! This is also the day I bought Little Lamby, my wool shirt, from the Kathmandu store.
On the second day, we hopped on board a different bus (sigh) to travel the Fiordlands. This is a region of glacial valleys carved aeons ago and home to New Zealand's most dramatic scenary, or so we were told. The scenary was certainly spectacular from Te Anau through to Milford (above right). Part of the tour was a boat ride out into Milford Sound, where we saw the steep glacial valley walls encircling the sound. There were plenty of waterfalls - the boat even went under a couple of them! The picture below (centre) shows one of the waterfalls. I didn't take a picture of the other one because I was standing under it! A pod of playful dolphins also swam alongside our boat at one stage.
Third day in Queenstown was the most crazy of all. Mike tried to go skydiving again, so he went off by himself, only to return later because it was postponed due to high winds. The girls decided to go rock climbing and us boys went jet boating through Shotover Canyon (where we experienced another dose of incredible scenary). When we got back, the girls were nowhere to be found, Mike tried to go skydiving again, so Little Lamby and I decided that we would try to climb Queenstown Hill.
Now, I was mistakenly under the impression that my parents climbed this "hill" when they were here. Actually, they did not. Little did I know that Queenstown "Hill" would actually be 907m high, with a steep uphill grade all the way up! As I sweated and cursed my way to the top, I kept wondering how the heck my mum managed to make it all the way up. Finally, Little Lamby and I reached the summit and posed for photo (below left).
The craziness did not end there. After we got back down the hill and back into the city, I ran into Mike, whose skydiving was now cancelled for good! To console him, I suggested we go do something else, even though Little Lamby and I were already pretty tired. So we got a couple of mountain bikes and cycled around the Lake. The cycling was fine....until we left the cycle track somehow and stumbled upon a walking track. Being young and foolish, we tackled it too (below right)! The track was so rutted, cobbled and steep in places, it was crazy. Whenever I was in the front and hit the brakes going downhill, the rear tyre would lift slightly. I was so worried that Mike would rear-end me and send me over the hill. The result of Lamby and me rolling down the hill into the lake would have been worthy "Jackass" material! We decided to give up when we found that we were carrying our bikes more than riding them! I was also exhausted.
We left Queenstown on Halloween to go to Dunedin. It's a very pretty town (below left) with plenty of Scottish influence. Coincidentally for Halloween, we went on the Cadbury factory tour. No pics were allowed inside the factory, but I managed to snap a pic of an Oompa Loompa a little later (below right)! :P After dinner at a rather ordinary Japanese restaurant, I managed to drag the group into doing more walking. We went to Baldwin Street - the World's steepest street according to the Guiness Book. I had to bribe the others with free beer to get them to climb up the street, but we did it in the end. The first photo in this journal was taken at the top of Baldwin Street.
Two days left. Onward to Tekapo, another beautiful lake. We went horse trekking around the lake in the afternoon, and that was another highlight for me (below left). I love horses, but had never ridden one before. Amazingly, controlling a horse in real life is almost exactly like how it's done in PS2's "Shadow of the Colossus!" /geek
No lake visit would be complete without me taking the others for a hike around it. This time, the twist was that we brought a box of fireworks. The moon was out and we found a nice spot for some pyros. The fireworks were pretty tiny, but we had a blast blasting them! It was also quite dark (below right) and I was the only one with torches. I gave the maglite to Su and used my LED to help me light fireworks. Su managed to break my torch despite my warnings not to drop it! Argh! Women! After replacing the bulb, we finished off the fireworks, cleaned up thoroughly and went back to sleep.
Christchurch
My photos end here because I was too tired to snap photos in Christchurch. It was our last night in New Zealand and we partied it up! Dinner at a French restaurant (Voulez-vous des escargots?). But the night was just about to start! We found a pub with $3 beer/cocktails/shots. THAT'S UNHEARD OF! It's a pity Mike isn't big on booze and Alda doesn't even drink....Oh well, Su and I made the most of it. She started enjoying herself a little too much and put her feet up, only to have the bouncer tell her not to. A few drinks later, she was horizontal on the couch, and the bouncer came back to tell her to sit up, much to her annoyance! So I prop her up on my shoulder and generously "help" her finish her vodka mix. Of course, being the gentleman that I am, I also realised that I should buy her another drink in return, so off I went to get some bloody mary's, beer and smirnov....and ended up drinking them all with some help from Mike! :)
By now, the night was not so young anymore and happy hour was almost over. We managed to half carry Su back to her room - while trying to explain to her that I couldn't just go around beating up bouncers because she didn't like them.
The next morning we got on a plane and made it back home. Phew!