Lake Tekapo, South Island New Zealand

Another breathtakingly beautiful place to be!

Mt Cook, South Island New Zealand

We came to know about this place from the reviews in the internet, everybody says how beautiful the place was and they are right! We are not dissapointed at all. This place was awesome, so breathtakingly beautiful.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand

Pictures of Auckland on our first few days in New Zealand. It was such a big city with lots of people. And the city was hilly so you must be fit to climb all the hills to go places. The busiest street is Queens Street, very similar to Orchard Road in Singapore. Here you could find all you need, they have sovenir shops, restaurants, branded goods, high tech equipments such as mobile phones, cameras and every thing else. Its easier to get around in Auckland, the transport system was quite good, which I mean was the buses.

We moved around using the green buses which cost us NZD1.60 and they could take you anywhere you want around the city. There were other bus operators but they cost more and this is the cheapest and the most reliable. They came every 5-10 minutes and they bring you to anywhere you want around the city.

The taxi was a bit tricky. They were very expensive and not worth using. To get around the city it could cost you around NZD17-20. To get to further up the city like when we got to Newmarket or Remuera, it cost us around NZD30! So better use the green bus!

The food were expensive too. We found one Halal Thai Restaurant at Karangahape Road and for a plate of fried rice, it cost us NZD9.00. A glass of orange juice cost NZD4.00. In fact most meals cost around NZD8-NZD9.00. We also bought meals from halal Kebab joints and one Kebab also cost us around NZD9.00.

Back at home

Well.. guess its time for me to update the blog with all the holiday pictures. We have tons of them and I just dont know where to start. There are too many breath taking and beautiful pictures and I dont know which one to post but will try my best. I decided to split it into places that we've been to not on what day we were there, I think its easier that way.

All in all, it was awesome holiday! Definitely the best vacation ever, even China failed to compete. Its just all worth it and we really had fun and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We have covered 4 places and stayed in 4 different hotel/service apartments. I am going to post pictures and commentary of each place and also commentaries on the hotels we stayed in. I dont think there is any complaints I wanted to mention, its such a smooth sailing and happy event.

New Zealand has so much to offer, and there was so much to see. 3 weeks definitely not enough to cover both islands but what we did was to go to top tourist destination in New Zealand. I think we did the right thing since these places have the best of what New Zealand can offer.

We went to Auckland and Rotorua of North Island. And we also went to Christchurch and Queenstown of South Island. And we have done so much, we went to visit few Museums, botanical gardens, weekend markets, mud pools and thermal activities, and have done lots of shopping we ended up paying NZD630 of excess baggage!

We tried skiing, which by the way was so much fun although I fell and hit my butt once on the ski slope. My girl and hubby enjoyed the activity very much and we did learn so much about skiing and how fun it was. Well, except for the ski boots which were so heavy and had to be tight on our feet when worn, its excruciating. But it has to be that way so that we could ski properly. Its the best experience ever!

Another first time experience was we went sailing at Auckland harbour. We never been on a boat and I was worried that I would get sea sick. But it went smoothly like a breeze. Although it was so very cold with the wind but we got to see the best of Auckland from the sea. The boat was called Ted Ashley and it was built in 1982 so it was rather unique to be on a sailing boat.

I will explain the place and activities as I post and move along so I better start with some of the pics. Till my next blog, bye.

Cathedral Square Christchurch

Pictures taken today at Cathedral Square Christchurch New Zealand.

Our rented car!

Our travel to Christchurch NZ

Continued our holiday to Christchurch on 5th June 2009. Christchurch is full of surprises and what a nice city it is! These are the pictures we took today of our first day in Christchurch inlcuding pictures below of the southern alps from the Air New Zealand.

And picture of my girl at Auckland airport before our trip to Christchurch.

Random pictures of the first day in NZ

First Day in New Zealand

We arrived in New Zealand on wednesday 3rd June 2009 at 9.00am NZ time (5am Brunei Time). Here are some random pictures. Will upload more when we are back.

Tomorrow is the day.

We are leaving for New Zealand tomorrow, at 8.10pm to be precise. We will take our laptop with us so I may update our travel in this blog as the time goes by.

See you New Zealand!

2 weeks to go!

Our trip is within 2 weeks. Time fly by quickly now. We will be leaving on the 2nd June and back to Brunei on 23rd June 2009. We are almost done with our shopping for winter clothings, except for bits and pieces of other things such toiletries and other stuff. And I depend on hubby to compile his list of stuff to bring, which is usually very comprehensive. When it comes to packing things, he is so very good at it. He always remember to bring odds things that you wont think about when going on holiday. But he remembers it every time! So I am not worried tehehe.

My girl is having her mid year exam at the moment so we try to minimise our holiday talk for a bit. Dont want her distracted and lose focus on the exam. The holiday will come but the exam is so important too.

Our luggages are ready, I've packed all our thermal clothings, wool shirts, hats, gloves, scarf, wind breakers, rain coats and socks. Next will be our outside clothes and I will take care of those in a week. We are not going to take any food stuff since every thing have to be declared at the airport. We want to avoid any delay as much as possible. Since we have booked an apartment with kitchen and we will stay near a supermarket, that will take care of it.

We also bought a smaller backpack kind of luggage for travelling and we will only take this small luggages to Christchurch and leave our bigger luggage maybe at Auckland airport. We will be in Christchurch for a few days, hire a car and do our site seeing. We plan to travel to Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook, hoping to see the mountain capped snow and beautiful lake. This is a very famous place for skiing so we want to see it.

The trip will take 9 hours to reach Auckland, so its going to be a long plane journey. So I think I will buy some books/magazines to read while flying just to pass the time. I am sure hubby and my girl will have their own laptops with them, we all know there wont be much inflight entertainments when we fly with RBA so better be ready. (Sorry RBA, but thats the fact!)

So everything is set.

New Zealand

Thats the place we want to go in about 3 weeks.

This is going to be our first trip to New Zealand. We dont know what to expect but we do know its a place full of wonders with gorgeous sceneries. I've read alot about NZ on how people never get tired of its beautiful surroundings, where people just stop their car and enjoy the sceneries because they are so awesome and wonderful and lovely to look it. You cant help yourself but stop driving, get out of the car and look out. Its just simply breathtaking.

We will be there for about 3 weeks, in between my husband taking care of his business, our itinerary is going to be packed. We will definitely visit:

Auckland

Rotorua

Christchurch

Mt Cook

June is winter time in New Zealand so we are hoping to see some snow. We are planning to go to Mt Cook and may try skiing? We will see how it goes, its not an easy task to do so we may just look at the place, without trying to ski of course.

And the themal mud pool in Rotorua. How often do you see boiling mud at your feet? And smoke or steam from the earth?

Its going to be awesome.

One month to go!

Woohoo... one month to go before our trip.

Excited and nervous. Cant wait to go and looking forward to the long holiday from work. We start to pack now, mostly our undergarments and winter clothings. There are still a few to buy but we will get there soon. So far so good. Everything is in order. We even renewed our passports!

Cant wait!

Is it just me or is the time dragging by so slowly? One minute I feel like time is flying so fast but today I feel time is so slow! Its still more than a month yet before our trip. But we have done every arrangements we can make at home. Our one month holiday is a long time so need to sort out so many things.

Cant wait to see these images with my own eyes!

My leave is approved!

Yay... done! I will be gone from here for a month! Awesome. My leave is now approved. Very excited and so looking forward to be away from the office. We will be gone in early June and back at the end of June.

NEW ZEALAND here we come!!!

2 Months to go

.. for the trip of a life time.

Cant wait to go. We are really excited. We live and breath NZ these days! Done alot of research on the internet on places to go.

Need to do some shopping soon for winter clothings and rain coats. Yes we do need that! And a good water proof shoes as well.

Everthing is in order except for my leave. That has not been sorted yet. Some hiccups in the office on who should sign it off since our boss in the office is leaving. The acting boss doesnt want to sign it yet until he is back from his own leave. WTH!!!