Post Road Trip

Ok so now I was in Dunedin , and staying at Eugene's Place. Time to find out what's so nice about this place and Otago University huh. hehe

Ok I didn't take many photos of the University of Otago, but I must admit I like the buildings here better as compared to the University of Canterbury

It was supposed to be a schooling day for the guys here but obviously they weren't in a schooling mood yet! We made our way to the peak of a nearby mountain and the view there was really nice! Apparantly they hadn't come to the peak before because of heavy fog and winds. After that , we went to sandfly bay where we saw yellow crested penguins and sealions. It was really cute to see the penguins making their way up shore while the sealions were sleeping lazily one corner. haha
The next day, some of us went to the Cadbury Chocolate factory for a tour! ( No it wasn't anything like Willy Wonka's Choc. Factory I assure u =p ) No cameras in the place, so I only pulled off a few shots within the allowed premises.

We had Pizza hut buffet lunch on one of the days. ( Haven't had this in SG for soooo long. ) And straight after that, I decided we had to burn off the extra calories put on and climb the "Worlds Steepest Street" - Baldwin Street. (No kidding, take a look at the pics)



Eugene (centre of the pic) thinking : Do we really have to do this?

And so , during the freezing morning of the 6th of September, I made my way to the train station to take the bus back to Christchurch, and the Road Trip Officially ended for me. It was fun travelling with the guys from Otago and I'll be looking forward to doing the Milford track with some of the guys after the exams. =)

Road Trip : Day 10

We woke up EARLY to catch the interislander ferry back to the South Island =( Goodbye North Island. From this point onwards, we were going to go full throttle all the way back to Dunedin.







Kaikoura during the drive back. This place looks so much better during the day! Beautiful mountain range in the background of the place.

After Kaikoura , it was back to Christchurch where I made a mini stopover at my place to drop off some stuff. After having dinner, we were back on the road again.
The night drive was a killer ... could have easily fallen asleep at many times , but had to concentrate on the empty roads!
We arrived in Dunedin at past 1 am and I put up at Eugene's house. (End of the road trip for some)

Road Trip : Day 9

In New Plymouth was one of the tallest lone standing mountains in the world , Mount Taranaki! We decided to go check it out before we left the place. Obviously it was too high to climb up during our short stay there, but we did manage to do a short trail there and took some really silly looking shots too :

After conquering the mountain (yea right) , we had to drive all the way back to wellington to stay for our last night in the North Island! I drove the stretch from wanganui to wellington and it was quite ok.
Wellington was WINDY. The night life there seemed quite vibrant as well, maybe because it was a saturday night. The guys decided to have a good dinner at a Moroccan restaurant just below our hostel, and there was even a belly dancing performance during it. But in the end, everyone was made to dance along and have fun too. hahaha

This is what I had ; A Sweet and salty flavoured chicken roast with rice and vege. Turned out quite nice.

Road Trip : Day 8

In the morning, some of us did Quad Biking along the slopes of Waitomo. It was quite fun, chasing the sheep and cows, but my bike keep getting stuck in corners (cause the bike can't do a reverse!) We got really dirty in all the mud and all, but it was quite enjoyable!

At this point ... the reality of the coming end of the trip was setting in. But not for me! Cause i was gonna join them back in Dunedin for a couple of days .. hahaha
Anyway, we made our way to New Plymouth from Waitomo. We arrived in the evening just in time for the sunset! Got some nice pictures from this place. :) The sand along this beach was all black because it was full of iron deposits. Made it look like a "black beach".

Never thought i'd do this kinda cheesy sunset picture ... but oh well .. i've done alot of stupid n crazy stuff the past few days there, haha. There wasn't anything much around the place to do ... But we did have alot of fun on the trampoline in the holiday park we were in .. haha. The girls were crazy about it, going b4/after dinner.

Road Trip : Day 7

Ok Mr. Procrastination is back to continue his old adventure =p Cannot blame la ... exams coming .. haha

So continuing , after our Bay of Islands tour, we made the arduous journey back to auckland in the blanket of the night. ( Tiring for the drivers ). As we woke up in the morning, we prepared ourselves for the drive to Waitomo.

Earlier on during the trip, the folks were talking about some motel where we stay in a plane. I didn't think much about it until I actually saw it ... it was really quite cool!

The cockpit of the plane(on the upper floor) was pretty much preserved, with a bed fitted right in. And the bottom was mainly the "rest of the room".

Ok , so on to something more exciting rather just admiring the place we stayed at ... hehe.We came to Waitomo mainly for the Black Water Rafting! It was realllly cooool. For people who are unsure what it's about. It's basically going into a deep cave where there's water running through it and it's really dark. There are plenty of glow worms in it and it was really cool , almost like looking up into a starlit sky while inside the caves. We travelled down the streams in the cave on rubber tubes. Oh yes ... the water was freeeeeeezing ... around 8 degrees if i'm not wrong. O_O

*I like this shot! If u look closely enough at the roof of the cave, u can see the lights from the glow worms.

Road Trip : Day 6

Last night , it was the night of the "solar eclipse" and all the locals seemed really excited about it. I guess that happens when you have nothing to do here at night at all! =p

Anyway, we had to drag ourselves out of bed because the tour started really early in the morning! The tour bus picked us up at 7.15 am and made it's way up towards Cape Reinga!

The view at the tip was breath-taking. And it was really windy too! (think u can catch a few photos above of us posing to simulate the strong winds =p ) There was a solitary lighthouse at the tip which was said to be very powerful and the light can travel several kilometeres.

The picture of the gang at the lighthouse =)

After the tip, we travelled down "90-Mile Beach". Along the way, we stopped by the sand dunes where we did sand dune surfing. It was really fun but tiring to climb up to the top of the dune to surf down on the boards. After that, we reached the beach itself where supposedly the sand is rather unstable and only 4WD (4 Wheel Drive) vehicles can access that area. It was beautiful! In fact, the bus guide cum tour guide showed us that in the sand of the beach, were live clams. He cracked open a few for us to eat and we were scared at first, but eventually ate a few. (Cannot get any fresher! )

And so ... we made our way down the beach in the bus ... which seemed stunningly beautiful yet endless. It was a very untouched beach with adundant wildlife. I guess this can be said for New Zealand as a whole - very well maintained wildlife. but no la ... I think East Coast Park is better (haha ... yea right)

Road Trip : Day 5

This was another day of thrills. Dias was really enthusiastic about jumping off the Auckland tower in a base jump ( From a height of 192m!)

I was pondering over it all morning and decided that I had to do it as well!

Here's a videolink of the jump : http://www.megavideo.com/?v=NBDP2MXW

( it wasn't of a very good quality though )

Dressing up, the tower itself and "conqueror's" of the tower. haha

Auckland was really a busy looking city. I think I would have felt"just at home" if I came to Auckland University instead of Canterbury. But I wanted a change of lifestyle , so i'm glad I did not =)

After having lunch, we booked a tour at the i-site for the Bay of the Islands.(That's the northern most areas of New Zealand) That could only mean we were already coming to the half way point of the trip soon. After settling everything, we started to drive up to Paihia.

Road Trip : Day 4

And so it was another day of fun coming along. It was drizzling slightly when we left for our first stop : Zorb! Basically it was just rolling down a slope in a ball. Like how our Dias put it after he did it, " Felt like rolling down in a ball!" hahaha ....


Well, I didn't do it cause I was feeling low on cash and there was only the 'wet' option available ,where they would put water into the ball to roll down the slope. Didn't feel like getting wet in the cold weather! So only Eugene and Dias did it. Looked pretty fun though.












We went to the Skyline Skyrides and did some pretty fun stuff there. There was the skyswing and an exciting looking Luge track there. The skyswing looked fun so Barvani, Shanny and me did it. Barvani was screaming all the way , that was so funny. Anyway, it didn't look scary until the ride was at it's highest point and I had to pull the cord to release us so that the swing would go in a pendulum motion. Was a cheap thrill =)



The 3 of us looking all scared n everything before the ride.



The Luge track there was really fun. Could see a good view from the top of the mountain before we went down ... and the wet track made it even more exciting!
After having lunch, we went to the Polynesian Spa nearby ( Top 10 in the world leh! ) to relax. It was really quite nice , a warm pool next to the lake and there were even lots of seagulls nearby making lots of noise. Yea it was really refreshing but I think it sapped alot of our strength in the end, haha. After dragging ourselves out of the pools, we made our way to Auckland! I was driving this time round ... and it was rather okay I guess. One interesting thing was that as we were nearing Auckland, the roads began to look like some Singapore highway with plenty of lanes and lights. Definitely feels like you were nearing a 'big' city. =)

Road Trip : Day 3 Continued ( yet again )

Ok i've been procrastinating this for long enough! So here goes ...

After Huka falls and the Thermal areas ... we were nearing to Rotoroa ... which had even more of the sulfur stench throughout the place. You could see fumes coming out of just anywhere , say from the side of a road. On our way to our next backpackers place, we passed by a Maori Village and were thinking if we could visit it before the end of the day. True enough, we booked a dinner cum night tour at the Mitai Maori Village. It was a refreshing experience ... we ate their local staple food , done by the "Hangi" method.

Hāngi (pronounced /hɑːŋi/) is a New Zealand Māori An ancient Maori method of cooking food using super heated rocks buried in the ground in a pit oven. Modernised hangi methods are still used today and are often saved for special occasions due to the large amount of time and preparatory work involved. (Taken from Wikipedia =p )

Anyway , It was just some chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes roasted underground to me. haha

Before that, we had a night tour of the area and a cultural performance with their traditional Haka. There was plenty of butt smacking! =X

So after that, we were starving and had a "buffet" dinner with a mix of the Hangi cooked food and local delights.( There was even a log cake. Felt like X'mas)

Road Trip : Day 3 Continued

Ok ... didn't have time to do this until today. So here goes :

After Huka Falls ... the gang stopped by the Craters of the Moon. Name sounds very nice huh .. It was quite nice , but there was an entrance fee.

Had alot of thermal activity in the area and had some mudpools and lotsa steam coming outta the ground. The steam was actually sulfur from the ground and it smelt terrible! (There was more to come at Rotoroa!)

I think the pictures are self explanatory =D

Credit to Shanny for the last 2 photos here =)

Road Trip : Day 3 continued

And so it was over ... what a wonderful experience. A once in a lifetime experience gone in around 60 seconds ( alot of $$ wif it too =p ) I have absolutely no regrets of doing it and I sure wun mind going it again =)











Next up, we left taupo and headed northwards. We stopped by Huka falls along the way and the river there was beautiful.