The trip was a true blessing - we had sunshine all the way (this is quite rare for NZ which is famous for it's cold and rainy climate) until the last two days in Auckland (which was fine because there wasn't much to see there anyway!). This was a real gift from God as many people who have visited NZ before have been unable to truly see the sights due to adverse weather conditions, and it was heaps safer too as we rented a van and drove our way around some really steep mountains, winding roads, and hidden corners - which would have been a lot trickier with rain in the mix.
We also ate, slept, drove, and did everything-else-in-between as a family - which as you may guess was not always rosy, but definitely gave us the opportunity to get to spend a lot more time together than we normally would. Below is the place where we spent a lot of our time together as a family - our car for the next 15 days.
The Chenga-Bus is coming
To recap this awesome trip to NZ, I thought I would try to give a brief summary of what we got up to in each city. And show you some pics along the way. It was 16 days long so we'll see how we go eh.
Here we go...
CHRISTCHURCH
Where the Cheng's tour of the South Island begun. This city is kinda built around a big church and was memorable for me because of the gardens and trees. People say that Christchurch is like New Zealand trees are cool - they have interestingly-shaped leaves and come in different colours too. There is a pic below of a yellow tree! You may not think that trees are particularly exciting, and I don't usually, but these were pretty cool, I should have taken more pics of them. So yeah, Christchurch was quite nice, but because we didn't really do much there, that's all I will say about Christchurch.
ChristCHURCH
OUR FIRST ROADTRIP
Was from Christchurch to the little town called Hokitika. The drive there was quite special, so even though it is not a city, I will give it it's own section here. This was the first time we encountered snow-capped mountains during the trip so the stopping the car, getting out of the car, photo-taking, jumping back in, driving off again cycle was one that repeated itself regularly. We had one stopover at Arthur's Pass for a coffee hit and headed over to Hokitika.
HOKITIKA
Is a very small place which resembled a ghost-town. It was kinda quaint though in a way, so I guess it was memorable in that way. But the cool thing about Hokitika was the pebble beach, and uh.. that's about it. Oh yeah there was one other thing - sand flies. This was where I got my first sand fly bite - I rolled up my jeans for like a minute, so I could walk in Lake Kanea - and I got attacked. The bite doesn't hurt or anything, it just leaves you with a bit of a rash if you let the little sucker keep biting you.
FRANZ JOSEF & FOX GLACIERS
Um I am still not really sure of what a glacier is... But it was pretty much a whole heap of ice that had slid down the mountain, and uh stayed there? Maybe I should look it up... Wiki says 'A glacier is a large, slow moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity. Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, and second only to oceans as the largest reservoir of total water.' Yeah see? I pretty much had it right... Well this and Fox Glacier were pretty spiffy to look at. On the way to Franz Josef Glacier, there were some pretty cool waterfalls flowing down from the mountains. Each of the Glaciers had their own townships too - we had lunch at Franz Josef and stayed the night at Fox.
maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the cold air, but this was just funny
the sign is to beware of rocks falling
And this is why the sign is needed
LAKE MATHESON
This was one place that I was really looking forward to see as I had put a picture of Lake Matheson on my computer desktop in the lead-up to the trip. I have to say, it did not disappoint. We actually went twice to Lake Matheson, once at dusk and once, the next day, at dawn. To get to the lake, there is a walking trail that goes through the forest and around the lake and then has several look out points along the way. A round trip on this track took us about 2 hours which included photo stops along the way. The first time we went, clouds hid the peaks of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman, until right at the end when we could no longer see the lake. So my bros and I decided to go again at sunrise to take photos if the peaks were visible. On that morning, Caleb woke up and saw from our hotel that the peaks were visible, so we drove down (it was only 5 minutes from our hotel in the Fox Glacier township) and went for a morning jog to the nearest lookout point. It was cold, and the jog made me realise my low fitness level, but the photos we got were worth it!
WANAKA
The place has a dodgy name but it is really quite a nice little place. The town is situated on the shore of a big lake (Lake Wanaka - apt name I thought), and I guess it was just a little place that was good to stop over at for lunch. Caleb and I got massive icecreams there for only about $2 aussie money. Not bad Wanaka, good effort.
QUEENSTOWN
The action-capital of the South Island. This place was where we had the most fun I reckon. Queenstown is situated in a valley and the drive into Queenstown is a steep zig-zag down one side of the mountain - this was pretty scary. Having many lookout points, we got some pretty good shots of the town itself. Here we did some cool things like riding the gondolas up to a restaurant for lunch, going for a ride in a jetboat through canyons on the Shotover river, flying in a helicopter and landing on the escarpment of a mountain overlooking Queenstown, and going to the first place they did bungee-jumping (AJ Hackett Bungee) and er, watching people bungee-jump off a bridge. No, I didn't go. I was game enough but my Mum was there and she said no way. My Dad egged me on. My Mum gave him a look. We left AJ Hackett with retinas in place.
We spent the most time of our trip in Queenstown and we all loved it. The town itself is run by backpackers pretty much, with every shop having shop assistants with different accents. We also managed to scam some free coffees from Esquires Coffee House who were about to open up for the firs time in Queenstown. We also had a great place to stay - Best Western Cranburry Court. Queenstown was truly a highlight of the trip.
'pro shot' at Shotover
'pro shot' at Gondola
ARROWTOWN
When I got back to Perth, I asked Merilyn (who recently went to NZ) what her favourite towm was, and one of her answers was Arrowtown. Why did I mention that little piece of trivia? Well, because I didn't think much of the town at all. And Caleb, well he was not shy about his distaste for the small little town. In Merilyn's defence, Arrowtown is quite a pretty little town, but it is little. One cool thing about Arrowtown was however, the Chinese Settlement. It was interesting to read about how the Chinese lived in NZ and the stuff they went through. Erm, I only took a picture of the chicken here. Sorry, you'll have to go there yourself to see more :D
TE ANAU
You go to Te Anau for one thing. Glow worms. And that is what we did. Te Anau had the best fesh n chups too (can't remember the name of the place, but it was pub/restaurant near the lake - not very helpful I know). To get to the glow worm cave, we had to jump a boat (bigger and slower than the shotover jet), which in itself, allowed us to see lots of really nice scenery. The glow worm caves were awesome. I think both my brothers and I agreed that the cave was cooler than the glow worms! The cave system was amazing. It really shows how awesome God is when it comes to His creation - these caves were formed just by moving water! The glow worms also demonstrated that they were the result of Intelligent Design. The 'worms' are not really worms, rather larvae, which attach themselves onto the cave, put out some 'fishing lines' (similar to a spider's web) and then turn on their light to attract insects. The insects will then get stuck in the fishing line and will be the glow worm's next dinner. Found a vid on the tube that gives you a good visual on this little critter.
Oh, one other thing in Te Anau, there's a place called Heng Lee's Souvenirs (I kid you not). And now the photos.
me in front of a drawing of the glow worm cave, the poem is quite cute too
MT COOK
Was probably the smallest township we stayed in. There were pretty much two places to stay - The Hermitage ($500 per night) and YHA ($50 per night) - and you can pretty much guess where we went. Though it was a shared accomodation (we had two private rooms, but with a communal bathroom - the Cheng-way of 'roughing it'), it was quite comfortable and it kinda felt like a camp at night time - people sitting around the kitchen talking, drinking milo, reading and writing. We ate at the Mountaineer's Cafe (the only alternative to the Hermitage) and we had brekky at the Hermitage - which is when I got sick. Pretty much everyone that stays in the Hermitage are Japanese. One old Japanese guy coughed while getting some peaches in the buffet breakfast. Though I saw this, it did not register, and I proceeded to take the peaches and eat them. Later that day, I got a sore throat. My mind cast back to when I saw the coughing Japanese man. I felt very stupid, and today, I am still feeling the effects.
AKAROA
Went here, had fesh n chups, went back. No photos. Interesting that happened, fire siren went off and a lady at the fish n chips place went running out. We later figured out that she was a volunteer fire-fighter. That's it for that one!
KAIKOURA
Stopped here for lunch at a place called 'The Adelphi' - yay! Like Regen! On the way from here to Picton, we came across a seal colony. We stayed, watched and took photos. It was awesome. Pics below.
PICTON
Is where you can catch the inter-island ferry from the South to the North Island. And yeah, that's pretty much all they got there. The rest was pretty boring. We spent two nights there and to give you an idea of the stuff that goes on in Picton, on night one, we watched the election coverage and on night two, we watched a movie. Picton is so small in fact, that there were only 3 channels on the TV and when a strong wind blew, two of the channels turned into snow. Enough said. The only picture of Picton I had was the Perfect Peace war memorial sign - I took it cos I like the song :)
NELSON
If you have been to Rockingham, you have been to Nelson. Not very exciting stuff, but good seafood. We took a day trip out here from Picton, and yeah, it's better than Picton, but in terms of stuff to see - its Rockingham all over again baby. The only picture here was this squinty one outside the place we had dinner - Saltwater Cafe. Good coffee, but our waitress was a bit rude.
INTER-ISLAND CRUISE
This cruise from Picton to Wellington took 4 hours in total. It was cool cos it was one of those boats where you can drive your car onto it, park it and then leave it whle you go upstairs and enjoy the ride. I have only done this one other time in The States. We watched movies, napped, took piccies out on the deck and just watched the scenery. It was a pretty cool way to say bye to the spectacular South Island.
WELLINGTON
This was a pretty big city and had your standard big-city stuff. We went to the Te Papa Museum which was really cool (I thought so anyway). It was totally free and had six levels on interesting exhibits about New Zealand. It even had an earthquake simulator! As I was feeling quite sick by then, I stayed back at the motel while my family had dinner, and they brought me back the first bit of Chinese food that we had had during the whole trip - pei dahn jook (if you can't understand my 'cantonese' it is supposed to say century egg congee). The little guy in the photos was on the floor at Starbucks and came right up to us. So cute!
NAPIER
The place that we stayed in for Napier made this great for us. Napier hasn't got much to see, but we had a great motel with the best shower. In NZ, they have a tendency to use water-saving showers and that is just horrendous. I love a good shower, and the water-saving showers were just not cutting the mustard for me. So I was delighted to have a decent shower with a jet-powered shower-head - bliss. It was one night here and then off to Rotorua. We saw this guy just out of Palmerston North on our way to Rotorua. He was chained to the fence but could walk out onto the road too. We stopped the car (in the middle of the road, thankyou very much) and the old sheep crossed the road and came up to say hi! We took photos and as we were doing so, the sheep looked to the side and ran back to his spot because another car was coming on the other lane. All the while, the cow in the background was looking on with a 'what are you doing crazy sheep guy?' expression on his face.
LAKE TAUPO
We stopped over here for a much needed dunny break (AJ and I got crazy-sized coffees in the morning, and out bladders were at breaking point as we pulled into the carpaprk) and lunch at Pizza Hut. They had the All You Can Eat Works Buffet there (remember the Works?? I used to LOVE the Works! The one on Hay Street near Cinema City was the best! Good thing it is not still open because it was located just opposite where I work now and I would be there every day and would be the size of a small whale by now). The Works only cost us $9.90 per person (NZ dollars, which is even cheaper in Aussie dollars)!! That's crazy talk! The Lake was great too.
ROTORUA
The home of the farty smell. Yep this place smells like fart. Why? Because of all the sulphur from the hot springs. Remember in Chemistry when you had your first encounter with Sulphuric Acid? Yep, that's what this smelt like. It was cool to see the hot springs but the smell was just too overwhelming. At one stage I inhaled just as the wind blew the stinky stench over to my direction, and that was nearly enough to make my usually strong stomach puke out my guts. It was nasty.
Thank God that our motel was away from the springs and there was no stinkiness there. We also had really good accomodation there which had a mini golf course. Now, ever since my Mum went to play mini golf with GNLD (the company my parents work for) during one of their annual conferences, and she won, she has been saying how she can beat us at mini golf. We told her she was all talk. There was only one way to settle it, the Cheng Family Mini Golf Extravaganza! We grabbed our clubs and balls and headed out to the green.
My Dad showed his game early - hole in one. We were shocked, but luckliy his game ended just as quickly as it started - he came dead last in the end. I was, however, consistently bad the whole way, and came second last. Adrian brought his A-game and put in a strong performance and won third place. It was now between the all-talk-carry-over-champion and the young powerhouse, Special K. Putt after putt, these two battled it out. Fluke-y shots all the way if you ask me. It came down to the wire and in the end, the scores were counted and Mum won, by one point! Caleb went back to check the scores that Adrian (the soon-to-be-Chartered-Accountant) had added up, and disputed the result - the scores were recounted and the revised results came through - a draw!! Wow, you couldn't ask for more excitement than that ladies and gentlemen!
We also noticed that the Wildcats were playing the Sydney Kings that night and that it was showing on one of the channels in the motel. We all settled down in front of the telly and watched one of the most awesome games we had seen in a while. The Cats really brought their game to Sydney and despite some really dodgy reffing and soft calls from Roger Shiels (dodgiest ref in the NBL by far) the Cats beat them in the last quarter by about 3 points (87 - 84). And that was Rotorua.
AUCKLAND
The last stop for the trip in New Zealand was Auckland. Not much to say about Auckland - it's just your typical big city. Had some good shopping here in the Factory Outlet (called Dress Smart) but other than that, it was pretty standard-large-city stuff. The weather was a little bit wintery, but that was OK because in terms of scenery, there wasn't much to see. The place we stayed at was pretty nice. It was somebody's apartment and it was located in the city centre. It was very swishy, but I only took one photo of the place. 
Well that's it ladies and gents. Hope you found that interesting. Thanks for stopping by to see what me and my folks got up to while visiting the land of the long white cloud. All in all the trip was a huge blessing and one that I won't forget in a hurry. I thank God for having a family that I feel close too and with whom I have so many memories. God is good!
2 comments:
nice pics!
your family must have had a wonderful time in NZ!
post up more picS!
im so so wanting to go NZ now!
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