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.

Road Trip : Day 3 continued

We reached the place in high spirits and I couldn't wait to do it!

After watching a video of the skydive , we were swiftly ushered to be the 1st group to do the dive. Apparantly we were the only group doing the jump at 15,000 feet! ( and 4 of us fitted nicely on the plane )

So without much hesitation and no time to think twice, we got dressed up in the safety gear and hopped onto the plane :

Catch my skydive video here! (it was too big to go up on youtube =p )
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=AAJB80D0

It was an amazing experience when I jumped off the plane and i'll never ever forget the feeling. Plunging down at at a crazy speed amidst a beautiful scenery was breath-taking. I wanna do it again!


The skydivers for the day! ( From left : Shireen , Shanny , Me and Gavin! )

Pictures before , after and during the jump.

Road Trip : Day 3

I woke up in the morning in the lodge in taupo wondering if I was prepared for what I was going to do later on! But oh heck ... I waited too long for this to happen to get cold feet .. hahaha
In the morning , Gavin said he wanted to join us for the PLUNGE and we more than welcomed him to do it too !
The morning was looking good so it wasn't likely the dive would be cancelled. No turning back now! A limo came to pick us up to the airfield nearby ...

Road Trip : Day 2

After arriving at wellington, I took another bus to wanganui to meet up with the gang. They made me feel welcome when I met up with them because the only one I knew among them all was shanny (thx for roping me along for the trip! )

So we left wanganui in the evening , heading for taupo. Before that happened, shireen and shanny posed to me a question I was wanting to hear : "Do you wanna go skydiving tomorrow?"

haha ... so we made a booking at the i-site before leaving for taupo. It was gonna be an exciting day tomorrow! =)The view from a hill near wanganui before we set off for taupo

Road Trip : Day 1

Okay. I wasn't with the ppl from Otago on the 1st day cause I had an 50% exam on the day they started travelling already. So it was up to me to play catch-up.


I had to take a bus from christchurch to picton, then the ferry across to wellington and finally a bus from wellington to wanganui to meet up with them. It was a long journey but well worth it!


The bus ride to picton was long n dark because I left in the late afternoon, and by the time I reached picton , it was already like 9pm. Not much rest for me as I had to catch the 5.45 am ferry ( yes you read correctly) But the ferry in the morning was pleasantly nice and scenic. And I managed to catch a beautiful sunrise. =)

Back From Road Trip!

Hooray ... i'm back from my road trip with the chaps from Otago. The trip was a blast... I enjoyed it totally. The driving was tiring, but the thrills of skydiving and other stuff as well as the countless nights of "bridge" sessions compensated for it. =P

Ok so i'm gonna post up all the stuff I did slowly bit by bit .. dun kan chiong hor =)