Te Anau to Milford Sound

It was pretty farnie that when I told people online that I am at Te Anau, I would get responses like "you reached Anau?", "The Anau"? They all thought that the "Te" was a typo on my part but little did they know that it was a place. Okay, gotta confess something here. I typed the Te Anau all in small letters which explains the misunderstanding.

The little town of Te Anau was a relax and quiet one. It wasn't such a big city as that of Dunedin nor Christchurch or even Queenstown. It was just a good place for a bite at Subway which we spotted at 4pm when we arrived in town.

Booked the 545pm Glow Warm Caves tour with Real Journeys and headed to check into the motel to clear our stuff before we actually moved around town.





The evening cruise was a sight. Managed to catch the sunset from the boat (despite the darn cold wind blowing). Pretty amazing and stunning views. It was a picture of serenity and tranquility in the distance. Couldn't take many pictures in the cave as we were told that the glow worms are "scared of light" and might "switch off their light". We had a boat ride in the darkness. Pure pitch darkness to observe the worms and we had to be really really quiet. Nice!

Returned to Te Anau at 8pm where my dad missed Chinese food so much that he drove us to the Chinese Restaurant there. HA! It was ex alright. The food in NZ is ex as I have iterated. Anyway, managed to surf the net for the night when we purchased wireless internet usage in our rooms. :) I slept on the bed in the living room that night cos' the rooms didn't have the heaters. ;(

Woke up superbly early the next day for Milford Sound Cruise. It was absolutely stunning! Despite the rain (it rains all year round in Milford), it was absolutely gorgeous! Perhaps that's what that makes this place so unique!


The sights along Milford Cruise after the rain. The waterfall was sorta just created only when the rain was present. It wasn't there early that morning! We were lucky!

The white background is the sights after rain.


The Seal is just basking in the sun after the rain. Darn interesting. ;)


And see? my hair is just sooo.... short. But after a while I think I'm getting used to it. Saves me on shampoo. The captain of the ship steered the boat so close to the waterfall that those people at the bow (front). This is the Starboard side of the ship aka left side. Look at the thick jacket I'm wearing! It's so cold! It was 6 degrees then!

Dunedin and Otago Peninsular

Attempted to cook Mee Siam with the paste from Prima with courtesy from the parcel sent by Stacey earlier on. (with thanx!) :) It was just wonderful and tasty. WS provided the roast chicken and coleslaw to top it up and it was just a superb dinner. We even shifted the dining table in front of the LCD TV to top up the experience! Then I remembered that I forgotten to ask Michael over. TSK. Ah wells, next time then. I still got 1 more packet of Mee Siam paste. ;)

It sure feels darn 'shiok' to be able to have some 'Singapore food' overseas.

Rented a car for the period mentioned above and was allocated the Ford car which I wasn't very used in terms of driving such a car. It was a 2 litre one but the signal lights are apparently different from the ones which I used to drive in Singapore or even the last trip during Easter.

Drove down to Dunedin and along the way, we stopped for sights such as the Moeraki Boulders. It was a sight to actually see people stop and take photos of just pebbles that are round and circular in shape. Honestly, I wouldn't have stopped for such an attraction but it was listed in the Lonely Planet Guide so I guess it was worth the bit. It was a good stop for hot drinks anyway.


Arrived in Dunedin at almost 6pm and boy, 6pm here is like 8pm in Singapore as we are now moving towards the winter season. So, it was pretty dark and we managed to find a reasonable stay at Sahara Motel for the night at 100NZD for the entire apartment. but then again, it was so stupid to see the same kind of separate hot and cold water taps. At least it is not available in the showers. *thank goodness*

Saw Uni of Otago in the city. Their university has a damn good strategic spot man, right in the heart of the city (something like SMU).

Woke up the next day and headed to Caldbury World where they produce chocolates. :) *grinz* We could almost hear the "Wouldn't it be nice if the world is made of Caldbury" song that is shown on TV. I was like so fascinated by the nice chocolate stuff! Almost like some kiddo in Willy Wonka's Chocolate store.
Couldn't take much photos though; we had to lock our cameras and cellphones into this locker that was provided. but anyway, we saw this giant chocolate fall that pour tonnes of chocolate down in front of our eyes! ;)

I was like....
"WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" with mouth wide opened.

After that we went to visit this famous railway station(tairei gorge or something like that) and there were little stalls set beside the station and we proceeded to purchase some local goodies (something like pasar malam just that it cost twice or thrice as much as what u pay in singapore). Forgot to take photos there. *bleah*

Immediately after that went to drive down to the "World's steepest Street" at Baldwin Street in Dunedin. Of course, we parked our vehicles at the bottom of the hill and hiked up. There is activity that the NZ people will race up to the top and back down on this street annually, with the best time so far of less than a minute.

There were houses up this street so those people who stay here for a long time would have the experience of driving up and down this road each day. We were so fascinated as each car drove up the street. Oh man!

Going up is truely amazing. Sometimes I really feel like tumbling down the road so that it would be faster going down.

From there, we drove back down South and headed along the coastal roads in Otago Peninsular and could see the entire Dunedin from where we were. It was an awesome sight! Went to Larnach Castle (the only castle left in NZ) and explored the entire place. We even stayed in the castle for that night!
Just dont ask how ex it is.

It feels like we own the entire plot of castle land when we could have after-hours access to the attraction. It's like staying inside Jiuzhai valley itself. The next day's breakfast was darn wonderful man!

10 minutes from Larnach Castle, we were at Sandfly Bay. No, there weren't lots of sandflies here but a fantastic and breathtaking view of the coast.

Couldn't wake up in time in the wee hours of morning to catch a glimpse of the penguins heading to the sea. :( They leave the shore at 5am leh. And I'm still snuggling up my warm bed at that time.

Subsequently, we had another long drive down to Te Anau since there weren't any other interesting sights to see at Invercargail, Bluff or Steward Island. (Guess I might return later for some hike. NZ has darn superb hiking treks man.)

Updates from 1st week of lessons after term break

Was at the Southern part of the South Land during the break with my folks. Had a really hectic and busy schedule driving from pt to pt. In fact, I think that what I drove during those 10 days is more than what I drive in Singapore so far. Took many pictures with myself having the super duper juper kuper short hair after my hair cut here at Riccarton Road for 7 NZD. My heart sank when the guy took the shaver and just treated my hair like some patch of grass and mowed it across my entire head, rendering it vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv short.

At least I thought it was vvv short from a Singaporean's pt of view, but Michael and WS just thought otherwise and that it was nice. So, I asked Tim and I got a "where is the hair?" reply. (-,-) Alien felt okay and my parents liked it. Now the point here is this: when my parents like my haircut, it must be because it's cut till darn worth the money (aka short) then they will say nice. So ARGH. From the looks of it, I think I might not even need to cut it till I return to Singapore.

Borrowed Tim's and Jevon's fav movie from the library.

They must be laughing at Jay Chou's "Secret" now. :p (some internal joke so don't attempt to laugh if you don't get it).

Was looking at the map in the new common room and realised that Hawaii is actually just so nearby from NZ! Despite so, it's another 10 hrs of flight from here! Almost booked an air tix there till I realised the duration. And this week isn't going to be very easy either with a test coming next Thursday and some personal development plan due on 16 May as well as the stuff I gotta organise for the remaining trip in NZ, not forgetting the Aussie part as well. So hard life. ;p

Will see if I got any more time this week and I would upload more pic for the world. :) And yesh, I think I needa exercise soon.

But for now, err.. er... Oh wait. I see an old woman and she needs help crossing the road. :)

random thoughts again

About 8 months ago, in my Comms class, my lecturer would always remind me that "bandwidth is a premium". I could never understand why, espeically so when Singapore's internet and handphone bills are always ever so competitive.

And it's about now, at the end of my subscription month each time that I start to scrutinise my internet usage and volume of data I have downloaded. And yes, I can now see why he would always chant the same mantra of "premium bandwidth" and the most famous "Shanon's theory on Communications". I remembered that he once mentioned that if I were to thoroughly comprehend the entire Shanon's theory, I would make a great communications engineer.

Once again, I'm going to re-visit the theory of Shanon in my coding theory classes as well as the data comms lectures. Ah wells...
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Been very bothered by the tonnes of assignments, espeically the statistics assignment which I have no idea how I'm ever going to learn the R-software.
Help.
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My fren's leaving for Australia on 15th-23rd april while I'm going to be out from 17-27th in Southland.

And for those whom I'm meeting in Australia/NZ in June/July/Aug, please do finalise the details by end april. I'm getting the schedule out, as soon as I figure out how to use R software...

Static shock everyday

Okay, this is like the donno how many-th time my hands got this static shock from touching anything metallic in the apartment. This includes the table top, tap, the cutlery, basically as long as it's stainless steel and it's dry, there is this very high chance that I'm going to get a sensation when I touch it.

And the worse thing is it happens each time when I am least concious of it.
Going to the pharmacy to see if there is anything to reduce this nonsense. Something like a spray on for the table top or for my hands. Cos it's really enough is enough when this happens like everyday. I'm even considering getting some gloves to prevent my hands from such sensations again.

Christchurch is dry but I think there is definitely some solution in the market to solve this problem, else I will start to come up with some engineering solution by myself. Afterall, I have studied electrostatics.

Daylight Saving is Over!

Managed to squeeze in an extra hour of sleep after yesterday's tramp. Our clocks repeated 3am on 6th April 2008. It's like... 3.59am -> 3am (again). The anticipation was just like experiencing countdown to the millenium and watching how the clock behaves.

Woke up to realise the strain in my calf muscles as I didn't do my warm up before the super long hike yesterday. It was so strenous that I slept really well last night. However, the first thing that came to my mind: "I sorta like have done this before..."

de javu


We had to go around the marked trail so it wasn't as direct as it looks with heaps of up and down slopes. The valley marks out our destination.


Stunning views while trekking.


Any closer to nature, you have to dig a hole by yourself.


You can see how heavy some of our day packs are. Finally reached the little hut here which they call it the "Packhorse Hut". See everyone stretching out cos' it was so strenous?


Another nice scene of the icy capped mountain tops. This is the mountain beside the valley in the first photo.


Finally made it back to the car. *phew* Everyone just had to sit and stretch again before we head out for our movie night.

We deserved that. =)

Tramping to Packhorse Hut

Did tramping today as a warm up to the more difficult treks in NZ which we intend to do on our next trip. Heard that we might have to even camp overnight in the wild... ... (I can see Mr Moe gloating now)

Trekked for almost 3 hours into the mountains to our destination with many 'landmines' (the sheep dung) along the way. So I was carefully threading each step. Despite everyone feeling darn tired and stuff, being the very ultra fit ZG, I took photos for everyone in the group and even led part of the trek. It was easy going downhill, but each downhill would mean a corresponding uphill when we head back to the car.

Nonetheless, the view was stunning. It was absolutely amazing. From the top, we could see the snow capped mountains, Diamond Harbour and Lyttleton Harbour. It was truly amazing. No wonder my teacher chose to get married in Christchurch. I don't know how to put it in words, but I took a video of the scenic spot up there so you will know why I feel so WOAH.

At our destination, there was this no-frills looking hut that provided v basic accomodation from Department of Conservation (DOC) of NZ. So basic that they simply just provided the (hard) mattress in dorm style bedrooms. Even a no-frills toilet and water is provided. Of course, what do you expect? It's free!

Paul and Catherine (being the nicest NZ family) brought their kettle and camping stove so we could have hot soup in the cold weather as we sat in the hut. It was awesome. Saw many ba ba white sheep along the way and they saw me like how I looked at them. Curious.

Paul sent us back to our accomd for a quick shower and change out while he went to rent video rentals and shop for groceries and picked Issac (who just won his soccer game 6-1) up. An hour later, we were read to move and headed to his place up the hills and caught some NZ movie as we had fish & chips for dinner. SLURP!

Had wonderful dessert thereafter to refill the energy lost today. HAHA!

Okay, photos will come in shortly. =) v tired man. i bet all of us can fall asleep as soon as we touch our beds.

and my term break begins

At 10am today, it's now my mid semester break! YAY!

So, for appetizers, I have decided to go for slumber sleep in the afternoon before going for drinks with a friend that night.

At the petrol station, Michael and I were trying to find the lever to open the fuel tank of his temporary Mercedes. Apparently, all we needed to do was to just push the fuel tank. I think we would look really hilarious if I have captured our frantic search for it on the camera. HA!

Tramping tomorrow on Saturday if the weather is good. :) GOSH I BETTER BE SLEEPING NOW.

From bad to worst

Bad: Boasting that you rather sky-dive than bungee
Worse: Knowing that she just went to the i-Site to find out more about it.
Worst: Tandem jump is scheduled next Thursday.
*shudders*

I don't know if I'm ever going to regret this.

The TranzAlpine - Meeting the challenge of the mountains

Took the morning train from Christchurch to Greymouth as indicated. It was supposed to depart at 815am but I think they could not handle the check-in by then so I think it ran 5 min behind schedule.


One of the many rickety bridges that the train will be crossing.

The scenic landscapes from the train. Most were taken from the observation car.







Then we reached Arthur's pass which was the highest point before we started a 15 min tunnel trip down . Whenever the train passes through a tunnel, it was horrible standing at the observation car cos' u can smell the fumes from the choo-choo. So for this Otika tunnel (if i didn't remember wrongly), they closed the viewing deck. For smaller tunnels, most of us just held our breaths in the tunnel. Very hilarious facial expressions from everyone out in the observation deck. HAHA!


Finally after 6 hours, we arrived at Greymouth, located at the West Coastal areas of the Southern Island. It was drizzling when we got there and I heard that the weather there is mostly cloudy or rainy. It was a nice picture of the after rain at Greymouth.


While walking through the town at about 230pm, I felt the sudden urge to use the toilet and found that the nearest one was this:

fyi, the ExceLoo shown above is the same "smart toilet" which was featured in the city of Christchurch. I was very reluctant to use it, but apparently Mcdonald's would take me another 200m of walk which I don't know if I can tahan that long. Good news is that this one was a bit smarter, as it didn't open its doors on me while I'm in there. It even plays music. :p

While walking through some shops, I wanted to get this for some of my friends but I think it's too 'naughty' so heh. Saved $4. *ka-ching*


Was watching Singing Bee with Kat on Tuesday and found the title of the song finally!
It's a Kiwi song by the Exponents, "Why does love do this to me". Very catchy chorus,

Another song of Britney "I love Rock 'n' Roll". Heard it during the Beach Party which Kat dragged me along.

Apparently, the MTV version cannot be embedded here. Wanted to upload another Britney song "Piece of Me" but again, you go search for it on youtube yourself. The users who uploaded it disabled embedding.

Got a few party pictures from Kat. Kiwi Draught has a reasonably good taste.


Okay, gotta go rest first. Attending a birthday celebration tonight. Oh and yeah I know. I will be uploading my Alpine Pacific pictures (selected) ones soon. Each time I upload photos, they will be resized to VGA before being uploaded cos' I don't have the patience to upload so many pictures if each takes like 3 min or so.

And to loyal readers, I'm going to give away free itunes code, each valid for 1 free itune song download.
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gotta go, going shopping with Kat.