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| Map from http://www.backpack-newzealand.com/mapofsouthisland.html |
From the rental (recommend renting the car with GPS), we didn't stop in Christchurch but, headed straight in the direction of Arthur's Pass. It took us around 2 hours to get to our first hotel.
Bealey hotel is located just before Arthur's Pass. I saw the location, the picture of scenery around the hotel and I told my friends that we got to stay there. It was totally worth it.
Coming from big crowded city, it was so quiet there. We got checked in and stopped at our cottage to freshen up but, had to hurry back to the lobby/ restaurant as they kitchen would be closed soon (around 8PM) since there were not many customers. When we got out off our cottage, we were greeted with surprisingly very friendly wildlife; Kea. I have seen them in a documentary and always wanted to see them in real life. Now I got the chance.
It was so lovely, cute and very curious. I took a bit of pictures and my friends had to tell me to move otherwise, we wouldn't make it to kitchen on time. We started to walk uphill to the main building and noticed a noise behind us which turned out the be the Kea running uphill after us. Kind of like little dog.
There weren't many people in the restaurant. We placed our orders at the counter. After a long travelling time, we were all starving and needed a hearty meal. My lamb loin was just that. It was huge and delicious. The lamb was so tender and with tasty sauce.
2nd Day -- The next morning, I think we were the first group at the restaurant. We had another huge meal. It called Big Bealey Breakfast and it really was BIG with eggs (your choice), bacon, sausage toast, hash brown, mushroom and tomato. And it was delicious!
After checked out, we drove to Arthur's Pass National Park (about 15 mins away). We, first, stopped at Visitor Centre to get some information of what we could do. We only wanted a short walk to see some sight and the staff suggested us to go up to The Devil's Punchbowl Falls. She said that it was only an hour walk with 'some stairs'. Well, I think the definition of 'some stair's between active person and non-active person are different. I felt like I had been walking up and up and up. The waterfall was beautiful. However, the floor was quite slippery and there was constant mist from the waterfalls. Waterproof jacket or wind breaker would be good too.
Getting back down was not as hard and we got back to the parking lot fairly quickly.
Our next destination was Pancake Rock in Punakaiki which was about 2 hours away. However, the drive didn't feel that long as we enjoyed the mountain scenery a lot. At one point, we passed a valley or yellowish flowers (don't know what kind of flower that was) and it was breath-taking.
We arrived at Punakaiki in the early afternoon. It didn't take long to look around the Pancake Rocks and Blow Holes but, it was a nice walk and great view of the ocean. The Pancake Rocks itself kind of reminded me of corrugated paper.
After that, we headed back to Greymount for a very late lunch but, most restaurants had already closed or stopped serving lunch. So, McDonald was our answer, a quick fix lunch. Then, we drove to our tonight accommodation in Franz Josef. That was another 2 hours away. We arrived at our hotel, 10 Cottages, in the early evening. The hotel was very convenient, the room was very clean and tidy. After getting settled, we went out to walk around the town a bit which was actually not much at all. We decided to have dinner at a popular hang our place, The Landing. The meal was delicious and once again, big size.
Sorry to say that I couldn't finish my surf & Turf but, I really enjoyed it.
On our 3rd day, we were going to split into two groups. One of my friends wanted to take helicopter trip to walk on the glacier while my another friend I myself would take a trial up to Franz Josef glacier. However, due to light rain and foggy condition, his tour got cancelled. So, after checked out, all of us headed to Franz Josef walking trial.
First, we went up to the Sentinel Rock Walk (20 mins) to get an overview of the glacier and surrounding.
The non-vegetation greyish part made me think of Frodo & Same heading to Mount Doom hahahaha. Actually, while traveling, we referred to The Lord of the Ring a lot since it was filmed here.
Then, we headed to the glacier. It was supposed to be 1 hour and 20 mins trip but, we, the non-active people, took about 2 hours. From the sign, the glacier has retreated greatly from the past couple years. The long walk was one thing. Once we got closer to the Glacier, we had to go uphill and I felt that the path just went on and on and on.
Once we've gone up one hill, we thought that that was it but, no no no there were more. Well, we did make it.
Because the Glacier has retreated so far, there were more rocks than ice. but still, it was awesome. We took some times with taking pictures, mostly to catch our breath before making our way back.
Going back wasn't so bad because it was mostly downhill and we already knew what to expect. So, we made quite a good time.
One Glarier down and another one (Fox Glacier) to see (if we could). Well, actually we didn't really expect to see Fox Glacier since we wouldn't be going the tour but, we had to travel in that direction anyway. First, we stopped for lunch at Fox Glacier. It was very quiet when we got there. We assumed that because either most people hadn't come back from the ice walk tour yet or the new crowd hadn't arrived. Anyway, I think we guessed right because people started coming into the restaurant when we just about half way done with lunch.
From there, our next destination was Mount Aspiring National Park on the way to Lake Wanaka. We spotted the Fox Glacier Viewing Point on the way out of the town and thought that it would be great to get a glimpse of it. The drive was about 500 meter uphill on a very small dirt road. Once we got to the viewing point, there were only a few parking spot (there might be more further up).
It was just that, a viewing point through the trees. Well, at least, we could say that we saw both glaciers hehehe.
From Franz Josef, we took Haast Highway and the scenery changed from trees and mountain to beaches and seaside at Bruce Bay. The highlight was at Knights Point Lookout with a where we had an excellent view of both mountain, vegetation, rocks formation and the ocean. The combination was so beautiful.
We, once again, turned inland on Haast Pass Makarora Road until we reached Mount Aspiring National Park where we stopped to visit the Blue Pool. From the parking, it was about 15 mins walk down to the river.
It was really BLUE!! The water came from the glacier and the color was amazing. it was so clear too. If it wasn't so freezing cold, it would be great to have a dip.
After seeing beautiful ocean and the crystal clear Blue Pool, we were again awe-strucked when we saw Lake Wanaka. It was Oh Wow Wow!!!
We stopped at a camping ground to walk around and soaked in the scene. Even though, we wanted to hang out and enjoy the view, we still had some distance to cover.
After seeing Lake Wanaka, the highway switched to Lake Hawea side. The coloring was drastically different from Lake Wanaka side and I think I like the green and blue of Lake Wanaka better (purely my opinion). After that, it was not very far to get to the town of Wanaka where we quickly checked into the hotel; 'Wanaka Hotel'.
The hotel was very convenient, close to the lake and shops. After freshened up, we went out in search of dinner. We ended up at Trout Café Restaurant and Bar, it was just along the lake front. The food was great. I had fresh and delicious blue cod fish & chips and my friend's BBQ ribs was moist and very tasty with just right amount of sauce that it did not dry up.
4th day -- The next morning, we took a bit of time strolling along the lake. The weather was perfect, not too cold.
We took a bit of photo then, started our daily road trip. Our today's destination was Queenstown. From Lake Wanaka, we choose to take Cardrona Valley Road & Crown Range Road instead of Route 6 and cut straight to Arrow Junction. The scenery was totally different from what we had seen before. It was kind of dry and brownish all along the way but, it was a change. We stopped to take in the overview of the Valley first.
From here, we could see the flat land and lake (not sure if that was Lake Wakatipu or maybe too far away). It wasn't long until we reached Arrow Junction where we took right to Arrowtown.
Arrowtown was very cute. Buckingham Street where the shops and restaurants were located, made me think of cowboy town. There were lots of people that day and we learnt later that it was a public holiday.
We walked the whole length of the street before ending up at The Post Master. It was a very pretty restaurant with outdoor dining in the garden. So, we decided that we got to have lunch here.
The food was really good. One of my friends and I had NZ mussels in white wine cream sauce and another had seafood chowder in bread bowl. Both were delicious and filling.
From Arrowtown, it was about half an hour to Queenstown. Our hotel was a bit out of the town, we had to drive pass Queenstown to reach Tanoa Aspen Hotel which was on Fernhill Road. The hotel was simple decorated (a bit of old style) and clean. The of the lake in front of the hotel was one of the reason I choose this hotel.
It was peaceful with excellent view. If it wasn't so chilly and windy, I might be spending the afternoon sitting on the hotel terrace and reading.
After my friend (the driver) got his rest, we headed to town. Our plans were to check out the town, have dinner (preferably at the famous burger joint 'Ferg Burger') and take the Skyline Gondola).
Queenstown was much bigger than other town that we had passed but, still not too big and we could easily walk around. After we parked, we had a look around the waterfront, some shops and scouted some restaurants for another day.
Once we worked up the appetite, we walked back to Ferg Burger. By that time (around 6pm), the queue was already outside the joint. Also, there were very few seats which were full.
Since, we planned this, we had to try. Lucky us, while waiting for the burger, there were a few people finishing up so, we took their seat right inside the joint.
The burger was huge. It was quite daunting whether I would be able to finish it. Well, I couldn't but, nearly there.
With very full belly, we, lazy people, drove up to the Skyline Gondola. Maybe because it was quite late, there was no queue at all. The view up on the observatory was breath-taking.
But, that was not enough. My friends wanted to see Queenstown at night, that it would give different feeling with all the lights on. At the time, it was around 7pm. My friend said that the sun would set around 8pm. So, we wait... We waited until after 8:30pm but, there was still some light.
After nearly two hours of waiting and nothing much to do, we gave up and went back to the hotel.
5th day -- This morning, the weather got a bit colder overnight and there were snow up on the mountains that wasn't there yesterday.
From this hotel, we got complementary breakfast which was very nice for me since I was the only one in the group who needed to have breakfast. Other days, I just bought milk and fruits to eat while traveling. The breakfast buffet wasn't much but, the view from the dining room made up for it.
For today, we already reserved the Shotover Jet at 9:45am. It was only a 10 mins drive from downtown Queenstown to Arthur's Point and the Shotover Jet.
We arrived early and the staff offered to move our schedule up to 9:30am since there were seats available. So, we didn't have to wait long.
The ride took only 25 mins but, honestly it felt much shorter and ended too soon. It was so much fun!!! Of course, by the time we finished we were soaking wet and cold but, I didn't want it to finish. I would love to do it again but, it was a bit pricy and one of my friend who got the wettest seat (the right most seat of the last row) didn't enjoy it that much.
We took the scenic route to Glenochy. The drive took around an hour but, the view was oh so awesome. We stopped at one of the lookout point and it was perfect.
Looking out at the lake and mountains with snowcap and we all just signed... The view looked like a painting and so surreal. This is definitely THE route that I will recommend to everyone.
Unfortunately, seeing these view first did reduce the WOW effect when we actually arrived at Glenochy. But it was still very beautiful.
We only spent a short time at the pier as it was so windy there. We had a quick lunch at one of the restaurant (cafeteria style) in town then, we retraced our way back. On the way, we spotted a sheep farm with (again) the beautiful view of lake and mountain so, we stopped for a bit of photo opportunity.
Too bad that the sheep were already shaven so, they were not as fluffy as we would like.
Once we got the Queenstown and refueled, we headed to our next pit stop which was Lake Te Anau. We got there around 4am and checked in to Aden Motel, just off the lake side. The owner was very friendly and she even provided milk and mini cupcakes.
The hotel was only a block away from the lake. It was a lovely day, nice for walking along the lake. Also, it was the spring time and all the flowers began to bloom. so, it was very lovely. I just love spring time.
Then, we had a stroll on the main street (I think) and got a take out of fried seafood for dinner. Tomorrow, we would have to get up very early to drive to Milford Sound for a cruise. So, we turned in quite earlier than usual.
To be continue ...
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