NZ Trip: Day 6-9

Previous posts: Part 1 and Part 2

Skiing was indeed fun; although — to be honest — I couldn’t master most of the tricks that the instructor told me. I didn’t know how to turn left or right; so sometimes I screamed to random people to get out of my way 😛 or… if they’re too slow to move, in the end, I got bumped into them! 😀 I had to say SORRRRY all the time hehe. I looked at many children aged 6 and older doing stuff that I was still struggling at. And they were even much better than me! I was so jealous and ashamed of myself hahaha. But I had so much fun that day. I wanted to do skiing again!! The next day I woke up, my whole body went soar! It’s weird coz I felt like I didn’t make a lot of moves :D.

On my last day in Queenstown, I went for Dart River Safaris. This tour started in a small town called Glenorchy and involved a half an hour jet boating along the Dart River, a short walk through forests, a coach trip back to Glenorchy, and a lunch meal in a restaurant. Glenorchy was another town used for LOTR movie. It had a VERY small library, a small church, a school, and… guess what? TWO bars! LOL. Yes, a bar was more important than anything else. I understood that :P. Anyway, Glenorchy was located at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu. The lake was NZ’s third largest. One unique thing about this lake was that its water level raised and fell about 12 cm every 5 minutes. And according to a Maori legend, the beating of a monster’s heart from the depths caused the rise and fall in water level.

I finished the tour at around 3 pm. I went straight to the town (of Queenstown) for Gondola ride. A friend of mine gave me the ticket for free!! She went there during the night for dinner and got another ticket for a ride during the day. But she told me she didn’t want it, so she gave it to me 🙂 . So I had a chance to see a beautiful Queenstown from a peak. It was quite magnificent. After enjoying the view, I went back to the town to buy some souvenirs for my mom. I also got a chance to eat Fergburger!! Yay! Fergburger was one of the biggest burgers I had eaten and it was the BEST! It’s a famous burger in Queenstown; everytime I passed the site, it was always packed with so many people! When I was waiting for my order to come, I saw many people taking pictures before eating this burger! Hehehe. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any picture of Fergburger 🙁 . I was alone there; didn’t want to ashame myself because of it 😛 . If you visit Queenstown, don’t forget to try Fergburger!!!

We left Queenstown for Franz Josef early in the morning. I didn’t feel like going. I really loved Queenstown. Unlike Brisbane, I felt so safe wandering around the town at night. Everyone on the street acted normally. Nobody screamed, for sure. I felt so sad to leave the town hehehe. Anyway, we first arrived in Fox Glacier village in the afternoon. We had a lunch and then went for a guided hiking on the glacier. I did the Heli Hike package which included the helicopter flight to the destination. I sat on the front seat, so I took many good pictures 🙂 . We landed smoothly on the Fox Glacier. Again, walking on the glacier was my first experience ever… so everything looked amazing to me!!! I loved it! The glacier walk was definitely one of the best activity I did in NZ!

We stayed in a hotel located in Franz Josef for one night. I was too tired to enjoy the night, so I slept early. My body still soared — blame it to the ski!! hehe. On the next day, we passed some towns and a mountain pass called Haast Pass. We also saw what our tour guide described as “the funniest road sign in New Zealand.” It’s a wicked sign. Afterwards, we went back to the city where we first departed the tour — Christchurch. Some people did a 7-day tour, which meant that their tours ended in Christchurch. This included my Singaporean friends, Gigi and Celine. So we had a little farewell dinner with other fellow travelling friends. We sat at a Japanese slash Korean restaurant. We then went to do some souvenir shopping. I bought so many things for my friends and family. We went to get an ice cream (in such a COLD weather!) afterwards and sat at a convenience store slash “cafe”.

We left Christchurch for Picton early in the morning. Picton was another small town where we boarded the ferry to Wellington which was located in North Island. I didn’t do many things on the ferry. I slept for the whole 3 hour journey! Hehehe. I was too tired 😀 . Few minutes after I arrived in Wellington, a fellow blogger Dessy texted me and asked me whether I had arrived in the city. We planned to meet up (kopdar! hehe) and had dinner together. Dessy happened to know my high school friend who lived and studied in Wellington. So I invited him too, although… at the end, I didn’t meet him! 😀 Anyway, it was great to meet her in real life, coz previously we only posted comments on each other’s blog or contacted via email (thanks dearr!!). I felt like having a steak, so we went to Hog’s Breath in the city. Surprisingly, I met my travelling friends Cynthia and Rebecca!! We were quite close during the tour. They both were from Brisbane and once told me how delicious the mud cake at Hog’s Breath was. It’s soooooooooooooo delicious! Hahaha. Dessy and I were soo full and (unfortunately) weren’t able to finish the cake :D. It was fun! One thing I really wanted to do while in Wellington was visiting Te Papa museum. People said it’s a beautiful museum. I didn’t have time to go there. I arrived in Wellington at around 4 pm and the museum was almost closed. 🙁

THE END (oh, finally! 😀 )

see more photos here.