Seventh Day at New Zealand - Greymouth

We were heading to Greymouth that day and that was going to be the longest journey for us during our stay at New Zealand. Google map estimated close to 6 hours drive. As usual, it would never be correct. 

We had our normal breakfast, bread with peanut butter and jelly and also Indomie. Since there is left over rice from thai food yesterday, i cooked a portion of fried rice for lunch. We probably won't see any asian restaurant on our way to greymouth today. I also warmed up some ready make pizza and frozen food that we bought from grocery store. 

We planned to stop by at Fox Glacier and have a short hike there to see the glacier. Of course we should not miss this. However, when we passed by the town, it was showering. So, we decided to skip this time and carry on our journey to greymouth. 

We stopped by at a visitor centre on our way to have lunch in the car. 

The plan of going to greymouth is to look for jade. We stopped by at a city before greymouth, called Hokitika. There are one big jade store there. But eventually we did not get anything. 

It took us about 9 hours to reach greymouth. Yes, finally we reach the town. It's really nothing much in the area. It's a very small town. We headed to our hotel. I have booked Top Ten Holiday Park Motel. You will be able to find top ten holiday park at almost everywhere in New Zealand. They have different type of apartment and motel. Aside from that, they also provide common bathrooms, kitchen, and common living room for poeple who camp there. I believe they need to pay certain fee to camp in the park. By the way, this park is located just beside a cemetery. 

Our rooms are pretty decent. It's not located in a building though. It's like a studio apartment. As we enter in the room, there are a big sofa, one queen bed, and another single bed. This studio apartment can fit 3-4 people. The motel is not great, but also not too bad. Just that we realized there was a strong smell of smokes from outside. Since it's a park, people can smoke. Therefore the non smoking room will not make a different because the smoke smell will enter our room if we open the door. 

After a lot of considerations, we decided to leave greymouth the next morning for christchurch. Luckily, we were still able to get an apartment at christchruch. It's the same place where we are going to stay for our last day at NZ. I quicky made a reservation from expedia. Our second night hotel booking at greymouth was forfeited. 

After settling all neccessary things, it's time for dinner. We went to a chinese restaurant in town. I can't recall the name. But food was only ok. All of us had chow mien. 

From there, we again went to New World grocery store for shopping. We saw this organic ice cream again. The similar brand that we had at Astro Cafe. 

Sixth day at New Zealand - Wanaka

Google maps estimated about 3.5 hours of journey from Te Anau to Wanaka.

Before we left the small town, we shopped for a bit at a gift shop opened by taiwanese. By the way, if you plan to do any shopping at New Zealand, just find stores opened by chinese, the stuffs they sell are usually cheaper. We bough Royal Jelly, manuka honey, lanolin cream etc. there was a pie shop that I have seen the day before. However the shop was close at that time. The taiwanese boss also recommended us to try the pies. It's just located besides their store. The boss recommended a cream chicken pie, however his wife (a malaysian chinese) recomended a chicken satay pie. We decided to try both. 

I personally prefer chicken satay pie, since the taste is richer. But cream chicken pie was good too. You should try this pie if you have the chance to be at Te Anau. There was quite a bit of people, but the line moved really fast. 

We left Te Anau at around 10 plus, if I am not mistaken. 

We passed by queenstown again and had lunch at @Thai. I made a trip to "cookie time" store to get some cookies there. I personally think the cookies are nice. 

Below are few pictures that I took on our way to Wanaka. 

We reached Wanaka at around 4 I think. Of course that's because we have stopped at few places on our way. The estimated time would never be correct. 

We rented a three bedroom apartment at Alpine Resort Wanaka. That was the best apartment that we stayed during our stay at New Zealand. It has a huge living room, dining hall and kitchen. Of course the rental fee wasn't cheap. It costs us about SGD 410 plus for one night. 

Since the apartment was very nice, we decided to buy some food and have dinner in the apartment. We went to a thai restaurant, called "Thai Siam". Food was great! I guess thai food will never go wrong. 

Fifth Day at New Zealand - Milford Sound

UToday, we are goingg to have a one day trip to Milford Sound. I have made reservation for cruise at 1 pm. So, we need to get there by noon. As I said from my last post, it's going to rain today. Indeed, it was raining almost the whole day. The route wasn't that smooth either. We had to take extra precaution for the trip. By the way, toilet wasn't that easy as well for that route. They do have portable toilet along the way, but trust me, you probably won't want to do any business there. There were lots of mosquitoes or insects as soon as you open the toilet door. It was gross.

On the way, there was one tunnel that could only fit one direction of cars. It was a dark tunnel. There is a traffic light and a timer besides it that tells us when to go and how long more we need to wait for the other direction to be clear. 

We reached Milford Sound around noon. So, we directly headed to a cafe to have our lunch. Luckily we prepared peanut butter and jelly bread, because we can't find any vegetarian food that my mom could have in the cafe. I just realized that I didn't take any picture of the food that we had for lunch. But I remember we ordered, vegetable soup with bread, sausage pie, vegetable pie, coffee and hot chocolate. The soup was quite nice for me. It was a thick brocolli soup. 

We then had to walk from the cafe to the port to take the cruise. It was still raining, so, the 15-20 mins walk wasn't that pleasant. This is cruise that we took, and I took the picture before we boarded the cruise. I noticed that most people take the big cruise instead of this one. But, my brother said that the big cruise won't be able to make a stop at some interesting spots. 

The cruise journey will take about 2 hours. The captent announced the theme for the day was "Waterfalls". Indeed, almost all stops that we had was to see waterfalls. There is one stop where he took us to see sea lions. He brought the cruise so close to a waterfall, where we could really feel the splash of water. Some people got wet because of that. Of course I didn't dare to stand too near. 

We got back to the port around 3 pm. The weather was still bad at that time. We straight away go back to Te anau after the cruise trip. 

We arrived at Te Anau before 6 pm if I am not mistaken. We accompanied mom and dad to have their meal at Ming Garden chinese restaurant, then we plan to have our dinner at "The Fat Duck", a famous western restaurant in town. But, unfortunately their business was really good on that day and they won't take any more customer without a reservation. So, we just walked to other restaurant to get our food. We ordered grilled oranger and salmon. I like the salmon. They marinated with manuka honey. It was yummy. 

After dinner, my parents stay at the apartment and we had an evening walk to the city centre. 

Forth Day at New Zealand - Te Anau

Today, we are going to continue our journey to Te Anau. Early morning, while deciding place to have breakfast, I took few shots around our hotel.

After walking around, we decided to have our breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The interesting part is the location of the restaurant is not in the hotel. It's located in Hilton Hotel. Both hotels share one restaurant for guests. 

It's pretty standard type of continental buffet. Just that there is one section for juices, which you can make your own juice. There are ginger, apple, carrot, and pineapple available for guests to make their own juices. 

After breakfast, we then got ready to leave queenstown. The journey was supposed to be short, about 2 hours. But then, as usual, with all the photo taken stops, and toilet stops, we reached Te Anau close to 1 pm. 

We booked a one bedroom apartment at Radsford Motel. It's a nice place. Opposite the motel we can see lake. The bedroom has one queen size bed and a single size bed. In the living room there is one queen size sofa bed. 

After checking in, we looked for restaurant for lunch. We found one chinese restaurant, I can't recall the name. But i think there is "city" words in the name of the restaurant. Food is edible. 

After lunch, we had ice cream, did groceries shopping at New World and then walked around the city centre. By the way, you can find "New World" store at almost everywhere around New Zealand. I guess it's like Walmart in the states. Te Anau is a very small tourist town. We could even walk from our hotel to the city centre. 

My brother planned to drive few miles on the route that we will take next day to Milford Sound to take pictures, so that we won't need to stop too many stops the next day. Anyway, it was predicted to be raining the next day. I was so tired that I slept almost the whole journey that afternoon. Below is one picture that I took. 

For dinner we didn't go back to the same chinese restaurant. We chose another chinese restaurant with a good review, called Ming Garden chinese restaurant. They are opened only at certain time for lunch and dinner. Their food and service are thumbs up. 

I guess that's pretty much what we did for the day. Please stay tune for my next post. 

Second day at New Zealand - Lake Tekapo & Mt. cook

We were heading to Mt cook and passed by Lake Tekapo.

Below is the scenery along the way

Our lunch was at Thai Tekapo. It's a bit hard to see this restaurant. When you entered Lake tekapo, pay attention to Four square supermarket and a post office, they are between them. If youvare coming from Christchurch like is, then it's going to be on your right. On your left, you will see a petrol station. 

Our next stop was Aston Cafe. Below is the view from the Aston Cafe. We can see Lake Tekapo. It's amazing! 

Enjoy an ice cream at astro cafe. 

We stopped by Alpine Salmon Farm. We got a 500 g of salmon sashimi. It's definitely a must try. Super fresh

Lake Pukaki

We reached the hermitage hotel around 3 or 4 pm. The condition of the hotel here is acceptable, but not as good compared to the rest of the hotel we stayed for this trip. I didn't even bother to take picture of the hotel. Haha. We stayed at a one bedroom apartment. There are one queen size bed and a queen size sofa bed in the living room, and there are two single beds in the bedroom. 

Third day at New Zealand - Queenstown

It's christmas! Merry Christmas 2014!

We had breakfast at the hotel for that day. It's pretty decent continental buffet breakfast. I managed to snap few pictures of Mt. Cook from the hermitage hotel. 

After the meal, we continued our journey to Queenstown. Below are few pictures that I have taken along the way from Mt. Cook to queenstown. 

It was supposed to be a short journey. We left the hermitage hotel around 9:15am, but we only reached queenstown around 2 pm. Before checking in to the hotel, we had our lunch at a thai restaurant, called "@thai". It's somewhere at the city centre of queenstown. 

After lunch, we walked around the city for a while. You can see Lake wakatipu at the city centre. A lot of people enjoy the sun by the side of the lake. 

There is one stall selling fish and chip, and i saw few people queued for that. 

There is one gelato ice cream stall. We decoded to try it. I tried the caramel creme flavor, but it's too sweet for my taste buds. The chocolate flavor was pretty good though. The cone is huge. 

We are ready to go to our hotel for some rest. I booked Double Tree hotel by Hilton. It was a nice hotel. 

Southern Island New Zealand Trip - Arrival Day

Our itinerary for the nine day trip at New Zealand starts from Christchurch-Lake Tekapo-Mt. Cook-Queenstown-Te Anau-Mildford Sound-Te Anau-Wanaka-Greymouth-Christchurch. 

Arrived at Christchurch on the 23rd dec by SQ early morning. We then got our rental car (toyota highlander). It's very comfortable for five of us with 6 luggages. 

We stayed near the city centre at Centrpoint @ columbus.I have booked 2 studio rooms for five of us, thinking that they may provide an extra bed with extra charge. Too bad, after the terrible earthquake in 2010, they have a regulation that doesn't allow 3 persons in a room. We were forced to get another room. 

After taking a shower, we went to get some food at a thai restaurant. Food is pretty good. Just that, the waiters made a mistake for our vegetarian pad thai. There was chicken served in the dish. So, i told then, and they appologize for that and planned to take it back and change for a vegetarian one. But since, we have tasted some, we told then that we would just keep and have the chicken pad thai. Of course we still want the vegetarian one as well. 

As we walked out, we offered them tips. At first they refused, but we insisted. I guess they probably felt bad due to the mistake. On the way back to hotel, i took out the receipt and take a quick look, and I realized that pad thai chicken wasn't counted.😅