Day 5 ~ Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook

It was such a beautiful drive, stopping here and there, lots of coffee and wine. New Zealand is just an amazing land with so many untouched nature's beauty. Everything is still intact, well kept, the river is so amazingly clear with light turqoise color resulting from the melting glacier of the surrounding mountains.

First night on the road, we parked in a holiday camp by Lake Tekapo. It got quite chilly in the evening, good thing that the camper had a good heater inside. It felt awkward at times travelling with a full kitchen and a toilet at the back of the car. Hot coffee or chilled wine is just two steps away.

The next morning we stopped by at a salmon farm along the way to Mount Cook. Let me tell you, fresh salmons off the river are just awesome!!! A full plater of sashimi that we shared looked positively beautiful, fresh, vibrant orange color and those thin slices were simply melt in the mouth. We met a few other asian groups who went absolutely crazy over the salmon platter.... the japanese, thai and chinese.

After that refreshing but yummie lunch, we continued along the road to Mount Cook. The landscape got more breath taking, those backdrop overlapping mountains were sooooo beautiful. Massive spread of untouched beauty right in front of the eyes the whole time.

Day 3 ~ Wellington to Picton

We're off to Wellington by plane from NPY. It was such a tiny neat airport. Something about the angle of the sunlights, created such a nice feeling about the airport, getting ready to board that twin engine plane. Almost movie-like, you know, when it's almost the end of the movie and the audiences are swept through an awesome scenery of sun lit airstrip with bright blue sky as a backdrop..... Ah well, maybe it's the foolish romantist in me that's talking.

Spent a night in Wellington. The city has a lot of water around. Not the kind of city I would like to live in. Auckland maybe, NPY could be a bit too quiet for us, but we both love Arrowtown.

The next day we started off early around 8am. After grabbing a quick bite of pastries and strong coffee down @ Coffee Bean, we rushed off in a taxi to catch up the earliest ferry to Picton. We got in just in time... phew! Ferry was a bit too long and I wasn't really in the mood to be excited - coffee hadn't kicked in yet. Besides it's still too early.

Got off Picton around noon to pick up the train tickets. We had around an hour before the train arrived, so we had a time to explore a bit of Picton. Hmmmfff, already craving for real asian meals, lunch was a bit of a disaster. Kiwis food are still way too bland for me. Second option would be fast food joints, KFC or McD, which of course don't exist here.

I've never sat this long on a train before. This by far, the longest train ride I've ever had. TI was a 5-hour ride. Whahahaha.... thank God my babe was there with me, otherwise I would definitely have gone insane hearing the entire conversation of the two groups sitting behind us - a German old grandma who loudly shared the story of her life, which was very very very long... she hasn't finished when we got off the train. The other one was a group of Americans *you know how loud they can be* sharing their "amazing" travel stories, always topping up one another. I felt like I'm tuning into one of those "marathon amazing race" program on AXN.

At one point I reached the "I've had enough of this" and just tuned out completely, they're voices simply become incomprehensible gibberish. Christchurch was the last stop. Whoa, finally! Train ride was interesting but I wouldn't do it again, no thanks! Now, this is the city that seems livable.

The next morning were a bit easy, we didn't get up until late. No tight schedule. All we needed to do was to pickup our campervan at Maui, near the airport. We got the 4 berths campervan, a bit more space than we needed, but kitchen was just perfect!!! Full cabinets of cutleries, pots, plates, bowls and glasses. Tiny fridge that fits just enough for the road. The next thing was stock up for the road.

South Island, here we come!

Day 1 ~ New Plymouth

This is the beginning of our trip to the south island of New Zealand. First stop was Dad's house in New Plymouth. It's been quite a while since the wedding in Bali, October two years ago. Nice to see him and Helen again.

The neighbor's cat I remembered last time, was still there. He used to be so huge and healthy though. Dad said he barely comes over anymore, he seems a bit sick and has lost weight. Helen still cooks delicious lunch and dinner as always - she adds a special touch to food decoration adopted from Rumah Bali. Hehehe....

It was a relaxing two day at New Plymouth.