360 degree spin Shotover Jet

Day 6 (1 Oct’09). Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……

Woke up, had breakfast and heard an announcement that there are waterfall and seal where we are heading, apa lagi, we ran outside to take pics PLUS still with morning tea in our hand. Talk about drama with a capital “D“!

We stop over at Discovery to drop those that has taken package to see the underwater life. It’s only for few minutes, looked like a base camp for the Discovery.

Reached the jetty at about 10.15am on the dot (impress), head to our coach and head back to Queenstown, BUT NOT before making few stops along the way (didn’t I tell you we got a darn good driver!! * beaming*).

1st stop - The Chasm. Kept reminding me of Da Vinci Code, sigh… It’s a nice site, but I prefer the on-foot-journey there, everything single thing look AND feel FRESH. Infact, it reminded me of Mossy Forest in Cameron Highland, Malaysia. I was soooo busy taking pics of the greenery that I was the last one to board the coach. Aiks!

We stopped at Te Anau as per the trip going to Milford Sound, as we would pick up/drop off passenger. Gavin will then give us about half an hour bio/coffee/ciggy break :D . I saw this cool water plane in the lake and a small chopper on jetty helipad - how cool is that right!?!? Apa lagi, kalam kabut take pics lar…. Macam kera dapat bunga.

Gavin then took us via farm lane to show us the BESTEST spot, overlooking…….. EVERYTHING! I felt like the scene from Lion King at Pride Rock. The whole land is MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hehhehe… how I wish lar.

Other then this, we slept ALL THE WAY to Queenstown.

We rushed back to meet our Shotover Jet boat ride. YES! Reached Queenstown on time - THANKS GAVIN! Queenstown is so small and easy peasy that we practically by-hearted the area. PERASAN! Was there early and us being KIASU, we brought forward our schedule to half an hour earlier. And YES, they allowed! Thank goodness for that as it drizzled shortly after we ended our ride. Thank you GOD!

The ride was………………. Exhilarating!!! ABSOLUTELY LOVE the 360 spin. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! So love it that we spend N$30+ to buy the pics, postcard etc… almost bought the boat… almost. Will update this after I manage to scan this pic. Hhehehe….

Nothing much to do after that as the ride took us approximately 1 hour to complete. We walked back to town from The Station. Oh yah! The STATION is located at the corner of Shotover Street, it is a place where you can book your AJ Hackett bungy jumping, skiing, paragliding, Shotover Jet etc etc, they also sells machandise of the activities offered under their own brand. How cool is that!

Basically, let me put it this way lar, Queenstown is the capital of Extreme Sport / Adventure, everything is done there from parachuting, paragliding, hand gliding, skiing, snowboarding, jetboat ride, river safari, hiking, glow worm, river rafting, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, via ferrata, aiyaa…. Everyting lar!

Anyway, we decided to walk around town to scout for souvenirs and Manukah Honey (ada order from Malaysia lar) before heading to our hostel and call it a day.

Credits : SummerGlow Apiaries, Wikipedia, Shotover Jet, The Station

Cruising…. Milford Sound

Day 5 (30 Sept’09). An evening on The Mariner.


I realized somehow, I would to take a boat or ferry cruise almost at every country I go to. It’s a MUST, and let me tell you that am scared of open water hence you will never caught me diving (YET!). Still trying to brave myself to do snorkeling…. Hahahhah… CHICKEN! Surprise neh…

Big boat or yacht or ferry is still….. Ok…. So far…. :P

Back to The Mariner, we board and was ushered to the “lobby”, can’t remember the boat term but I know it’s not the deck (right?!?). Registered, chekced out our cabin and all, then... what else but to go to the sun deck right for more pics and pics and more pics. With GOD given good weather that day. HEAVEN! LOVE GOD!

Since it’s not easy to describe those stuff I saw in a blog or face book or even when you tell the tale to your family and friends, hence I’ve decided to SNAAAAAP every single little thing. KIASU!
We took the boat excursion (of cause) out of the 4 offered (kayak, stay on The Mariner or swimming). Yup! Am a lazy bum… hahahhaa….We did learnt a few things though. We were taught about the fern leaf that we’ve been seeing representing on almost everything that in New Zealand. The leaves are dark green on the upper side and silver underneath. The underside glows brightly in moonlight providing excellent track markers in New Zealand's native forests. It was often used by Maori as bedding for sleeping on due to the thin texture of the 'hairs'. Very enlightening to us. We also learnt about the beautiful sounding of bell birds and not forgetting the fiord of cause.

Also kepoh at the captain’s cabin as it was less cold, less wind chill and was hoping to see some hunk, but none appear. I need to talk to Murphy on this.
Waited anxiously for the sunset - trying to get good pics (hopefully). Of cause GOD will never fail us on this… the panorama was exquisite, picturesque, serene….sigh…. All these in front of us…. GOD is GREAT!

We attempted to “sit” and “laze” at the deck after dinner, do a little star gazing perhaps (ceh wah…)…. NO! It didn’t happen, SEJUK LAAR…..GILER….
Liking this country as days go by. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Credits : Nzflag, Treknature, Wikipedia

Land of Fiords

Day 5 (30 Sept’09). Journey to Milford Sound.

We’re more prepared this time around (smarter too), first of all; we woke up early plus all our stuff are all ready and packed, checked out, put our luggage at Deco Backpackers storage room and walked to the Steamer Wharf, 20 mins before departure as per indicated. Felt very proud of ourselves *pet on the back* *proud smile*.

Gavin, our driver cum tour guide finally arrived, nice friendly chap and informative as well, registered and off we head to Milford Sound. We expected our journey to be a direct route to Milford Sound, but to our surprise, he made a few stops at scenic and historic places - value for money! *happy*. Highly recommend you guys to use them - Real Journey.

1st stop was at Kingston to see an vintage steam engine choo choo train - Kinston Flyer. This little town is very unique, why? The cost of the land fetch up between NZ$150k - 300k (phew), overlooking the Lake Wakatipu, it’s a place for holiday homes or bachelor crib some people might refer it. The home are really tiny and yet the price…. Wow!

2nd stop - Mirror Lake, hemmm…. Not much of a mirror nor lake, since the lake we have been “exposed” to were like forever big and forever long… Andrea was disappointed here (we have higher expectation).

Next stop Gunn’s Hollyford Camp, home to Murray Gunn (understood he is an eccentric). It’s a place where people would rent a cabin and do a little fishing, nature walk and etc.

Falls Creek - awesome. Finally we stopped at a creek and to complete it - there’s a waterfall as well - PERFECT.

He stopped at a creek overlooking the mountains, we saw a Kea bird - nosy and noisy, apparently Kea have the intellect of a 7 yrs old kid. He was waiting for us with a pose… am half thinking he might ask us for money or perhaps Real Journey engage him to be there on standby for tourist ie under their payroll. Hahhahaa…..

This is the more interesting part (my ignorant I must admit), what they do is; if they see there would be an avalanche of some sort which is dangerous to the traffic, they will blow the area and “create” or trigger the avalanche (they’re professionally trained and I believe this is under the road ministry or something). And this year is the longest period (12 days) they closed the stretch. Gavin stopped at the designated site to show us how thick the snow is (or whatever left out of it). This was before we reach the Homer Tunnel, the smallest tunnel I ever experience and it is NOT SHORT! SCARY!). How small? If 2 busses pass, there are probably one inch gap from each other. Even a car and a van we need to slow down.

Avalanche - associated with snow, but I never heard of tree avalanche till today. It happens due to the strong wind blow from the avalanche that causes the tree to fall on top of each other… interesting? Definitely. Pic on the left is what happen last week and the one on the right, happened more then 10 years ago… it took that long to grow that little. Imagine….

Finally we have reached Milford Sound jetty. Excited! Excited! Excited! So excited that I think I’ve taken 700 pics on the cruise ALONE. Giler ke apa ni…ehhehe… I mean, even the pics I took can’t do it justice. MUST MUST MUST GO! To make it special (ceh wah…), they anchored and gave us 3 choices, swim (6 degree C - HELL NO!), kayaking (tiring thy arm) and boating (ahh… better choice). We took the later ofcos aside that we can take more pics!!!!!! And guess what! We saw penguins! Only 3 Happy Feet though - jadi lar.

Cruising...cruising...cruising

Credits : Deco Backpacker, Queenstown NZ, Wikipedia