Our NZ South Island Adventure

WINTER - AUGUST 2015

This blog post is a sharing on our recent Vacation at New Zealand South Islands and our 1-day transit at Melbourne from 8^th to 17^th August 2015. It was a fantastic holiday, a much needed vacation since we have not had one together as a couple in years.

We’ll be sharing experiences, details of expenses, logistics arrangements and some  photo highlights of our exciting time there as tips and ‘heads ups’ for future adventurers. 

It’s interesting to share first : Why did we choose New Zealand South Island?

  1) Snowboarding – we really wanted to go snowboarding; we really enjoyed the activity haven’t gone since our student days back in 2006

  2) Beautiful landscapes

  3)  Experiencing a vacation using camper vans

  4)  (Relatively) Low Cost – for us Malaysians, the airfare was cheaper compared to European countries, and the exchange rates are still at level which doesn’t burn out wallets

  5)  English speaking – yeah, we’re a bit picky about this because if we plan to take extensive road trips, going new and unknown places, as strangers in a strange land, a breakdown in communication can be a serious threat to the enjoyment of our holiday. Some people seem to cope fine with communication breakdown in foreign countries – in fact seem to find thrills in them – not us.

  6)  It’s a “no worries” country – there are no problems on politics, race, or religion, and the people are friendly and easy to communicate with, further minimizing holiday threats. The roads are systematic, camping and utility sites clearly identified, and easy to plan in advance before going.

TOTAL COST

The following a summary breakdown of costs incurred throughout our journey (including our 1-day transit at Melbourne). All costs are rounded to ‘100, total for 2 pax 
1.   Flights (Miri-KL-Melbourne-Christchurch-Melbourne-KL-Miri) and Travel Visa = RM 5,600 
2.   Campervan (Accommodation + Transport) for 9 days – (~RM 400 per day) = RM 3,700 
3.   Paid Camp Site – NZ$122 = RM 300 
4.   Fuel/Gas and Transportation (shuttle bus) – NZ 500 = RM 1,300 
5.   Food & Groceries – NZ$ 450 =  RM 1,200 
6.   Paid Attractions – NZ$ 1020 = RM 2,700 
7.   Gifts and Souvenirs – NZ$ 310 = RM 800 
8.   Others (Miscelleanous expenses) – NZ 200 = RM 500

TOTAL = RM 16,100

Flights

Miri, Sarawak - Kuala Lumpur - Miri, Sarawak: AirAsia

Kuala Lumpur - Melbourne, Australia - Kuala Lumpur: Air Asia X

Melbourne - Christchurch, New Zealand - Melbourne: Jetstar

Accommodation/Transport

Transport:- Campervan – Escape 2 by Wilderness Motorhomes

Accomodation:-

Day 2: Abisko Lodge, Methven

Price: $32/night/2persons for powered site

Review/Experience:

- Our powered site was on grass.

- Only used the clean toilets. Need to pay $2 for the shower. There’s a kitchen and common area too.

-  Good location as it is one of the pick-up spots of our SkiBus to Mount Hutt. We parked our campervan just opposite the lodge at the main street during our day to Mount Hutt for snowboarding.

Day 3: Caroline Bay- Overnight Campervan Parking

Price: $0

Review/Experience:

- Parking space on concrete road – Great!

- Facilities: Clean toilets, dumping site and fresh water available

- Great view: It is in the middle of a huge park and a beach.

Day 4: The Oval – Overnight Self Contained Campervan Parking

Price: $0

Review/Experience:

- It’s in the middle of Dunedin city, so easy access for us to ride our bikes.

- No toilet facilities.

Day 5: Curio Bay Camping Ground

Price: $20/night/2persons for non-powered site

Review/Experience:

- No signage to indicate location for non-powered sites

- Each site was surrounded by flax

- Didn’t use the facilities

- The worst night for us

Day 6: Qbox Motorhome Park

Price: $35/night/2persons for powered site

Review/Experience:

- The site was a bit inclined but it’s on concrete ground.

- Facilities are awesome: Unlimited hot shower and clean toilets, clean kitchen with dish-washing liquids

Day 7: Qbox Motorhome Park

Same as Day 6

Day 8: The Pines – Lake Pukaki Freedom Camping – Hayman Road

Price: $0

Review/Experience:

- Must make sure to park on gravel road and not grass

- There’s no indication where you can park, but a review in Camping NZ said that you can freedom camp anywhere along Hayman Road.

- Wake up to the beautiful Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook

Day 9: Chamberlains Ford Recreation Reserve, Leeston Road, Springston

Price: $0

Review/Experience:

- There is a long-drop toilet but we didn’t use it.

- Must make sure to park on gravel road and not grass.

- It is beside a main road, so it was quite noisy at night.

Day 10: Melbourne Airport

Price: $0

Review/Experience:

- We slept on the bench near to power plugs at arrival area of Qantas Airlines. No one bothered, so that’s good.

- The airport has shower too, so you can freshen yourself for the day before your flight.

Prayer

Having very limited masjids around the south island of New Zealand, we really had to make our own spaces to pray around our trip.

The Prophet Rasulullah ﷺ said:

‏ "‏ الأَرْضُ كُلُّهَا مَسْجِدٌ إِلاَّ الْحَمَّامَ وَالْمَقْبُرَةَ "‏ ‏

“The entire Earth has been made a place of prayer except for toilets and graveyards”

(Abu Daud, ibn Majah, At-Tirmidzi – “sahih” @ Al-Albani)

Groceries Shopping

What we brought from Malaysia – 3 packs of Brahim’s Chicken Honey Sauce, 1 pack of Brahim’s Chicken Kurma Sauce, 1 can of Sardine, 2 cans of Tuna with Chilli and Mayo, garbage bags

Day 1 at Wilderness Office - We took salt, dishwasher liquid, air freshener, toilet tissue papers from the donation box at the office for our use in our journey.

Day 2 at Pak n Save in Northland – Brocollis, Nuts and Raisins snacks, Cereal, Brink Whole Chicken (Halal), Spaghetti, Spaghetti sauce, Mushrooms, Brown Onions, Black pepper, Mineral water, Milk, Eggs, Kitchen towel, Cooking Oil

Day 5 at New World, Dunedin – 1kg Rice, Bread, Luttuce, Kiwi fruits, Energy bars, Snacks, Laundry powder

All were used up except 2 packs of Brahim’s chicken sauce, 1 can of tuna with Mayo, remaining of Spaghetti, oil, remaining laundry powder which were given away in donation box at the Wilderness office for others to use them. 

Day 1 – 08/08/2015 : Melbourne

Beautiful, well organized city

Very tourist and newbie-friendly – especially apparent from the free tram services which cover a pretty big area of the city. It was easy for us to hop on and off to take photos without spending a single cent.

 

Buildings and city environment have a mixture of old-architecture style buildings, with old-school style trams, along with modern structures and setups. 

On the left picture is the Parliament of Victoria

 

Victoria Harbour

 





This is a cathedral in the middle of Melbourne CBD.




 


Has numerous parks within and surrounding city, very pleasant to watch. We went to Treasury Gardens, Fitzroy Gardens and Flagstaff Gardens.

Shopping outlets

The city of Melbourne. Very pedestrian friendly. If you are tired of walking, you can just hop onto the free tram. The free ride is only within the loop of the CBD. You have to pay if you ride outside the circuit towards suburb city of Melbourne.

 It is safe to ride bicycle in Melbourne.

Took time to go to the local Masjid in Melbourne at Jeffcott Street; was a small and cozy little place very close to the city centre; about 10 minute walk to southern cross station.





Took our flight at around 9.30 PM via Jetstar and off we departed to Christchurch. Bismillah. Our adventure begins. 

Day 2 – 09/08/2015 : Christchurch - Methven

Arrived at around 4:30am. First thing we noticed was how cold it was.

Greeted by Wilderness staff pickup at the airport at around 8:30 am by Tanya.

Freezing cold at a temperature of around -1 deg C! Immediately realized the urgency to get gloves ASAP. As cold as Melbourne was, we didn’t see the need for gloves – but when we arrived at Christchurch, our hands were freezing.

Noob mistake #1 – Didn't bring gloves in advance. It’s a cold city in winter, duh.

During a nice little briefing from the Wilderness staff about using our vehicle, we were greeted with a pleasant and even rare surprise – it was snowing in Christchurch!

An ad-hoc option opened up for us while we were completing our rental documents – the option of bicycles. Initially we didn’t want to rent bicycles, as this would add to cost, and we didn’t see that we had much time to cycle. But the guys explained to us that by having bikes, we can just park at any scenery, have a bike around the lake, take some good photos, lock them up back the van and get moving. Not knowing what to expect of NZ, we took the bicycles  - perhaps we’d have some nice short bike rides.

After a good hour or so briefing the use of our motorhome rental vehicle, we were off on our journey.. Our nice little home/van.

Noob mistake #2 – Driving a camper van is NOT like driving a car.

Camper vans come in various shapes and sizes; the one we picked up, called the ESCAPE 2, was pretty huge – at about 7m in length, this was pretty much the size of the bus. Had to be extremely careful with the turning radius, or else we’ll hit the car/curb beside us.

Which we probably did.. ooops. While parking at Northlands shopping centre to do our first grocery shopping, we tried to park our van; which proved to be quite the nightmare, which made it inconvenient for ourselves and others to move around – we then realized that not all parking spaces have slots for camper vans. 

Noob mistake #3 – not all parking spaces have parking space for camper vans. Especially busy crowded areas like supermarkets. Ask people around, do some advance research, ask the tourist centres, etc – where are recommended places to park if you got a huge vehicle in town. 

So after a somewhat traumatizing experience with parking the camper, we braved our journey to Methven, to get ready for our snowboarding trip. This was one activity we’ve been looking forward to in a long time, since we haven’t touched snow or been snowboarding since our university days in Australia, about 9 years ago. 

 
 
Initially we were advised against driving to Methven at that particular point of time because it was snowing, and Methven was well-known for being a snowy town, the base camp for skiers and snowboarders. 

Noob tip #1 – Use the NZ Travel Authority to determine ahead the road conditions of your destination and decide your best routes. 

So we looked up the NZ travel authorities and asked the Methven locals how the weather was – and saw that it was OK for driving. Bismillah.

After about 1.5 hours of slow-driving thanks to the ice and grit on the road, Alhamdulillah we made it to Methven. Picking up our snowboarding gear was easy enough thanks to the helpful staff at Big Al’s Ski Rentals and we were pretty much all set to make our drive to Mount Hutt for our exciting snowboarding adventure. 

Noob Mistake #4 – Don’t drive up ski/snowboarding areas.

When we shared our intent of driving up to Mount Hutt, the staff at Big Al’s advised us against doing so – she was a local and even she herself won’t drive up; driving conditions were slippery and difficult, potentially dangerous – much rather take the bus.
 Realizing we’re noobs at driving this big vehicle, we took that advice. 

 

We camped overnight at ABISKO lodge, about 400m away from Big Al’s. 
We took the powered site which cost us about $32. To our pleasant surprise, we found out that the bus to Mt Hutt actually stops by ABISKO lodge, and that we can just park our van at the side of the road while we go Snowboarding the whole day. Nice. One place that settled our accommodation, and transport to the ski place.

So there we were at 8pm in darkness, reverse parked our van into one of the powered sites, which was covered in snow. End of Day 2, finally we got to take a good night’s rest after long days of travel. We were planning to get up at 5am to catch the 7:45am bus. We put on additional heaters to keep ourselves warm, then lights out. Alhamdulilllah, so far so good…

First time cooking in a campervan

Day 3 – 10/08/2015 : Snowboarding at Mt Hutt - Methven - Timaru

 
Waking up at around 3am, we realized the van was unusually cold – as if the heaters stopped working. True enough, the power supply was not entering our van. We went outside to check on the cable; saw the cables were fine – but there still was no power. The excess heating (and perhaps over-anxious gadget charging) the night before tripped our power supply.

Noob mistake #5 – Don’t overload your van’s power supply. It’s a camper van, not a factory, for God’s sakes.

The instruction manuals told us to reset the junction box at a compartment at the bottom of the wardrobe. But we couldn’t find the switch. After a while of struggling at 3am, we gave up on the power supply, and resorted to using our van’s LPG gas supply for heating. At a powered site. Ironic – I know, right. So we got back to sleep, to get enough rest for our big snowboarding day.

Woke up and realized it was 7:15am. Missed the first bus. 

Noob Mistake #6 – Get enough rest. Obviously after long days of travel, we were very exhausted – perhaps we didn’t realize it because we were so excited, but the fatigue really made it difficult to wake up. No worries there’s the next bus at 9:45am. So we took our time and got ready, put on our gear and our quick breakfast, ready to move out. Then, we realized…

Noob mistake #7 – find out if the place you are parking in is on grass or on gravel road.

It was dark the night before when we came in Abisko, so we didn’t really see the roads. Lo and behold, all 4 tyres were on grassy surfaces covered in Snow.

We were stuck.

We couldn’t drive out.

OMG OMG OMG.

Noob Mistake #8 – Do NOT park on grass. Seriously.

The camper van we rented was a cozy motorhome which was not meant for any off-road driving, which was evident from the front-wheel drive only setup, relatively small tires, and a not-that-powerful engine.

Realizing that perhaps our chances to snowboarding were doomed, we went to the staff at Abisko lodge to get help. Kena sound sikit, but what to do, the price to pay for a noob.

After a while of struggling to push the van out, 3 adults pushing still wouldn’t do the trick – Until eventually one of the lady staff figured out that we should put “cat litter” on the ground to give more traction to the mud for the tires to move. It worked!

Noob Tip #2 – Cat litter is a great backup plan for getting your car out. 

Alhamdulillah it was a great victory for us; by 9am we were out of the mud and ready to get on the 9:45am bus to Mount Hutt.

And we made it – Allahu Akbar! woohoo!

(Snowboard from 10:30am – 3:45pm)

 

We arrived back at Methven around 5pm, almost dark. Maghrib/Sunset was around 5:40, so to make up for time, we quickly took a drive to our next stopover destination on the day to Timaru. 

Day 4 – 11/08/2015 : Timaru – Oamaru – Moeraki – Shag Point - Dunedin

We freedom camped for the first time by parking the night before at a parking lot near a harbour at Caroline Bay, Timaru. 

Caroline Bay

 

Noob tip #3 – Download the app Camping NZ (offline map) in your gadgets to know the nearest location of accommodation, be it freedom camping or paid holiday parks. Even if you are out of internet coverage, you can see the maps and contact numbers. 

It was a simple place, a gravel-parking site where we saw other camper vans parked too – but the site was very well equipped, with public flushed toilets (albeit freezing water!), an effluent disposal site to dump our grey and black water.

Grey water means used water from the taps, sinks and showers. Black water is the dump on our toilets – the number 1 and number 2’s. The good stuff.

So we had our first experience of dumping out the grey and black good stuff, and top up our fresh water supply. 

Noob tip #4 – Get camping sites with good water topup/discharge supplies. These aren’t very common, and when you do come across them, it’s a huge blessing.

 But hold on, we’re not quite done with Timaru. Caroline bay was near the beach and a beautiful park, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take our first bicycle ride. 

Noob Tip #5 – Take the bicycles!

Cycling around Timaru was a beautiful experience.. it was just a small town but we saw some nice sights – the beachside, a small aviary, and even a skate park – which made me realize my cycling skills weren’t as good as I thought.

We bought some stuff at the local shops and had our essential coffee – after which we departed from Timaru and headed towards Dunedin via stops at Oamaru, to see the penguins

 
We arrived Oamaru where we came across a beautiful harbour. So yeah, bicycles on.

Oamaru harbour

 

After the harbour bicycle tour, we headed towards Bushy Beach Road to look at the yellow-eyed penguins. 




 



A pathway in between bushes where penguins hide themselves.



 

Unfortunately, aside from a cute little seal and a nice beachfront view, we didn’t get to see much, or any of the penguins, and after reading the information board regarding the penguins, we realized...

Noob Mistake #9 – It wasn’t the time of the day.

We planned to visit Bushy Beach road “on the way” to Dunedin (roughly around afternoon @ 2pm) – but the best times to see the penguins was around ~4-5pm, just before sunset – where they will come back from their day’s catch out in the sea.

We called Penguin Place, a famous paid tourist attraction in Dunedin, if we could secure some slots to see some penguins. Unfortunately it was fully booked and we could only see it the next day. 

Noob Mistake #10 – Book and pay your tourist attractions in advance. Especially the limited ones on high demand.

Having no choice and still desperately wanting to see some penguins with our newly acquired long-range zoom lens, we waited on until about 4:30pm – but unfortunately, no penguins.

We couldn’t have time to spare so we had to move on, departing with some feelings of disappointment.

Our next destination was the Moeraki Boulders which is quite a huge attraction in South Island. They are basically a group of very large spherical “stones” lying on on Koekohe Beach near Moeraki on New Zealand’s Otago coast. If you think about it again, you couldn’t imagine how on earth these huge stones could appear on this beach.  And the spherical shape is almost perfect.

 You can find the explanation of the formation of the boulders and history on Youtube.


 We stopped by at Shag Point, another place of attraction for viewing penguins and seals for free, but it was already dark so we continue our journey towards Dunedin, stopping by a place to get some Fish N Chips for our quick dinner. 

There were many types of fish for us to choose from the menu and we were recommended to get Blue Cod fish and Elephant fish. People always claim that the best food to get in New Zealand is Fish N Chips, and hands down, they were absolutely delicious.

Upon arriving in Dunedin, we were stunned by the night view of city. It is indeed a big city with the second largest population in South Island. 

Again, we freedom camped by parking our campervan at a parking lot at The Oval.   

Day 5 – 12/08/2015 : Dunedin – Owaka – Curio Bay

The Oval

Our morning was greeted by a beautiful sunshine which makes it a great day to have some bicycle rides around the city. Mind you, this was our first time to cycle on a busy road in the city along with the cars and buses. We personally think that it was challenging and thrilling as the roads were not flat all the way but there were long steep slopes and also that it was illegal to cycle on the pedestrian walkway, so we shared roads with the other cars. 

Also, this was our first time that we went for grocery shopping by a bicycle. Achievement unlocked! It is nice to know that there are proper parking spaces to park our bicycle at a shopping mall.   
  

Noob Tip #6: Always wear your backpack when you go cycling in the city. You never know that you might stop to do some shopping.

Dunedin Railway Station

Along the way, we stopped by at Dunedin Railway Station which was once the country’s busiest station and also at University of Otago, which is New Zealand’s oldest university. Almost half a day was spent on cycling in the city of Dunedin (a small part of it, as it is a huge city). We forgot to check out Baldwin Street though, which is the steepest residential street in the world.

A river at overlooking the University of Otago

Stopping by for a quick shopping

In the middle of city of Dunedin

An empty road, but nice view

Dunedin is the second largest population in South Island, NZ

Our day continues by heading (by Campervan ok, not bicycle!) towards Owaka.

Sheep grazing the field

We stopped at Surat Bay which was known as where the seals always lay around lazily on the beach. The beach was a long stretch. Although the white sandy beach was beautiful, we could not find any of the seals. So we continue our destination to Matai Fall, another free beautiful attraction. But we just couldn’t find the way to get there! Alhamdulillah, there was an i-Site in the small town, so we stopped by and ask the lady. 

Noob Tip #7: Every town, even how small it is, has an i-Site. Never hesitate to go to i-Site if you need extra information, be it on parking or direction. That’s why it is called i-Site, “i” stands for information. 

Surat Bay

We also asked why there were no seals at Surat Bay. We were told that they will only come out if the tide is low or if it is not cold. If it is cold, then they will stay in the water, or otherwise they would sunbathe on the beach. Fair enough. It was our mistake that we didn’t ask about that earlier. But Alhamdulillah, it was still nice to take photos of the places.

10 mins walk towards Matai Falls

The journey to Matai Fall took us another approximately 45 minutes. From the entrance, it was a short 10 minutes walk to the waterfall. We spent there about half an hour as it was almost Maghrib and then we leave before it gets dark.

Praying with Matai Falls in the background

Gotta keep moving to our last destination before it gets really dark

View of our campsite. Our campervan is among the flax

Our last stop was at Curio Bay, which was located near the southern end of South Island. We overnight at the camping site there at a non-powered site with a price. It was around 8.00 pm, so the office was closed and the map to our site was so bad. Moreover, it was pitch black, so we couldn’t find our way to the right spot.


As we were driving inside a space surrounded by flax, suddenly the tyre just couldn’t move. Remember what happened to us during the second day at Abisko Camping Site, it happened to us again, Subhanallah. We tried for almost 2 hours by putting some small pebbles around the tyre hoping that it could help with traction, but it’s not helping. After a night of sweat and tears, we just thought that we should call it a night and try to get some help on the next morning. 

 Day 6 – 13/08/2015 : Curio Bay – Queenstown

Sunrise

We woke up early before dawn to watch the sunrise, with a little hope to see penguins. No penguins in sight. Oh wells, no ‘rezeki’ to see any penguins. The office opens at 11 am. That is almost half a day to spend at an almost deserted place with no phone coverage (except at the viewing summit) with our campervan stuck in the mud. And it started to drizzle too. We continued to make lots of prayer that help will come soon.

Alhamdulillah, Allah is the Helper that He sent to us the owner who has a fairly big truck. Finally, with a few reversing, the truck managed to tow our campervan away from the mud. After refilling our campervan with fresh water, we quickly continue our journey to Queenstown. That was at around 1.00 pm.

 It was a non-stop 375 km journey from Curio Bay to Queenstown. Allah has blessed us with good weather as it was sunny all the way, Alhamdulillah. Hence, the view of the wide green fields with hundreds of sheep and cows grazing the field, beautiful trees, and snow capped mountains in the background that keeps us company along the long journey. 

 

Devil Staircase

It couldn’t get better when we reach the Devil Staircase’s. The view was absolutely breathtaking. But why it is called as such? It’s because that this stretch of State Highway 6 is in part tortuously winding, and rises and falls over a stretch.
 A lot of accidents have occurred here we guess. It’s not surprising though as along the stretch is an overview of the beautiful clear blue water of Lake Wakatipu, so it’s a big distraction for the drivers. Danger alert.

Noob Tip #8: Focus on the road, especially with yellow lines on the road. You could be stopped by the Police (or even an Ambulance) if you are seen to drive recklessly and dangerously. When you have a chance to pull over to enjoy the view, then do it.

  


Upon reaching Queenstown Airport before entering the city of Queenstown, suddenly we were in the middle of a ‘massive’ traffic jam. It’s unusual because we rarely see even 7 cars at one time for the past hundred kilometres of journey. This is because that Queenstown has its reputation of being New Zealand’s favourite tourist destination.  It is popular for its adventure activities like skiing and snowboarding, jet boating, paragliding, skydiving, whitewater rafting, bungy jumping, mountain biking, tramping, fly fishing and more. Well, we didn’t do all of these. The highlight of our trip was of course snowboarding.

 
We headed to the i-Site to book our bus to Coronet Peak and went to collect our snowboarding gears at a rental place there called, SnowRental. Then we checked-in at a powered site called QBox Motorhome Park with a price of $35/night for two. 

The best thing about travelling in winter as compared to summer is that you don’t have to book your spot at a holiday park or paid camping site in advanced. 

We also realized that there are a lot of foreigners working there. A Chinese guy (not a local) greeted us at the i-Site while a lady from South America helped us at the Qbox reception. The dude who assisted us at SnowRental was from the UK. And you will see a lot of ski instructors at the ski resort from all over the world. They were there on ‘working holiday visa’ in which according to a website, it was created to help backpackers earn money as they work their way around New Zealand.  Awesome!

A simple dinner before calling it a night

 

Day 7 – 14/08/2015 : Coronet Peak

Queenstown is a home to four major ski areas – The Remarkables, Coronet Peak, Cardrona,Treble Cone. CORONET PEAK here we go!

(Snowboard from 9.30am – 4:00pm)

 

 
We decided to stay another night at Qbox Motorhome Park as we wanted to explore more of Queenstown on the next day before departing to Lake Pukaki.

 

Day 8 – 15/08/2015 : Queenstown - Lindis Pass - Twizel - Lake Pukaki

Noob Tip #9: Before going anywhere, especially to a major attraction place like Skyline Gondola, always make sure that your camera SD card is empty.

Nearly missed

Fortunately for us, while taking videos of some ducks nearby to our campervan, suddenly the camera indicated that the memory is full. So we did what we were supposed to do.

Friendly ducks at a river nearby the carpark

 Walking to the Skyline Gondola

Queenstown

Skyline Gondola is a must go attraction in Queenstown as it offers an awe-inspiring view of Queenstown. Gondola is basically like a cable car which goes up to the peak of the hill. From the hill, you can see the beautiful turquoise-blue of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown bay, houses and building in the Queenstown city with the stunning view of Double Cone and The Remarkables snow capped peaks in the background. It’s simply breathtaking.

 
But what makes the Gondola a really unique exciting experience for us was the Luge – it was like a go-kart, but going downhill all the way without engines – all we controlled was the steering and the brakes. The Luge’s marketing tag line is “one ride is never enough” – and we couldn’t agree more. Although you “only” control the brakes – going downhill can actually feel pretty fast, and the tracks were designed in a way that allowed you to overtake other luges – allowing for a mini-race with your buddies. It was really fun! It was like a controllable roller coaster – that you can overtake other carts too. And since it was on roads and wasn’t on rails, we had to be careful with the balance, too – high speed turns might make the luge tilt upwards or even topple over if we aren’t careful!

 
Our gondola tickets cost us $55 with 5 luge rides – and at the end of 5 rides, we can even say that “five rides isn’t enough either”! But khalas – we had to move on to catch up our schedule (and our expiring parking ticket!) We bought ourselves a souvenir photo – even though we usually don’t, but these photos were really nice.

An owl just ate his meal - a dead mouse

Just outside the Gondola entrance was the Kiwi Birdlife Park. With an interesting, arch-like entrance and a “guarantee” to see live kiwi (and after the disappointment of not seeing penguins) – we know we just couldn’t pass this chance up to see the unique wildlife of New Zealand.It was our first time to see Kiwi birds and they are already listed as endangered species.This park has varieties of other birds and reptiles such as Kea, Parakeets, Tuatara, and many more. 

The famous Kea

We stopped over to do our prayer at this beautiful scenery

We left the park at 3.00 pm and sadly left Queenstown towards Lake Pukaki via Lindis Pass and Twizel. By the time we were at Lindis Pass Valley, the sun has passed the horizon and the day became darker. So we didn’t see the stunning view along Lindis Pass Valley as many have mentioned in their reviews. We did freedom camping at the side of Lake Pukaki.

Our accommodation for tonight

 

Day 9 – 16/08/2015 : Lake Pukaki – Lindis Pass – Twizel -  Lake Tekapo – Springston

Had breakfast with a beautiful view of Lake Pukaki and Mount Cook

Lake Pukaki

Green meets white, Subhanallah

Purely for the sake of admiring the view, we backtracked our way towards Lindis Pass Summit – this would mean an additional ~160km plus 2 hours delay – but it was worth it! We were served with a majestic view of transformation from greenery to pure white of snow blanketed fields and mountains.

Amazingly just before we arrived, it was snowing near the Lindis Pass Summit, and by the time we arrived when the weather was a bit more cleared, the snow was thick and puffy – the perfect kind for throwing and  mucking around. We spent almost half an hour giggling around, throwing balls of snow to each other and capturing the beautiful scenery there.

The second “ad-hoc” stop that we made along the way back to Christchurch was from a little signboard posted from the main road – “Clay Cliffs”. Interestingly, this location had not been rated anywhere we’ve been researching (Camping NZ or TravelAdvisor), so we were curious to see what was there – besides, the signboard indicated it was only a few km from the main road. Turns out it was a long, winding way inside, about 10-15km in, before we reached the “entrance” of the clay cliffs. The entrance was simply a signboard, with a box inside saying “each car $5”, with a warning that there are “hidden cameras” in case people get naughty and decide not to pay (although we doubt those hidden cameras actually exist). It was a very undeveloped plains, with sheep and cows in the wilderness plains, which was a nice sight – but the roads were very underdeveloped, very rough gravel with lots of patches of mud, barely wide enough for only one vehicle at a time  – and we had to drive another 10km in. 
 

Careful!

Cute sheep

We drove very slowly, making sure we did not drive on any muddy surfaces and repeat the agony of Curio Bay/Abisko lodge – until we reached a point on the road that was just completely clay mud. Obviously our camper van was not going to be able to make it; so we got off on foot to the cliffs. It was a good call – going on foot with our joggers, even our shoes would get stuck in the sticky clay mud! Another 20-30 minute walk/hike inwards and we finally made it to the clay cliffs.

Quite a long walk towards the Clay Cliff

It was an interesting sight, seeing the clay cliffs out of nowhere – from the grassy plains, snowy mountains, and suddenly these cliffs were just ‘there’, a unique sight from the rest of the area. However, the attraction was private owned and seemed underdeveloped – as if the owner just left it there. Although it was a nice sight and an interesting attraction, we wished there was better development, proper roads and more specific guides leading up to the place.

Leaving the place, we had to reverse for a good 1km or so before heading back to civilized roads again, but Alhamdulillah – incident free.

Stunning!

We drove back towards Twizel where we bought salmon at High Country Salmon Farm. The place allows the visitors to feed the salmon for free. We were spoilt by choices of salmon. We had a bagel of salmon with cream cheese, salmon quiche, salmon sashimi and cold-smoked salmon.  The tastes of fresh salmons were absolutely delicious. So much so, that our journey time was once again delayed and affected – because we wanted to get a second bagel! It was that good mashaAllah.

Our journey continued where we made another pit stop to do our Zuhr/Asr prayer at Lake Pukaki.

Time showed almost 5 pm and it was a long tedious journey from Lindis Pass towards Christchurch. We got tired and sleepy of driving so we decided to take a power nap at any next stop. Thankfully our next stop was beside another beautiful Lake Tekapo. We thought of sleeping but the view pulled us out of our campervan to take another hundreds (exaggerating) of photos of the scenery.

Lake Tekapo

Took a power nap for good 20 minutes

Noob tip #10: A 20 minutes of powernap is really effective in keeping you awake during long hours of driving. And any stop in South Island will provide with nice view anyway. So when you feel sleepy, just pull over and take some rest.

Christchurch city doesn’t have any place for us to do freedom camping (according to Camping NZ) so we headed towards Chamberlains Ford Recreation Reserve, Springston. This place is about half an hour from Christchurch city so it’s a good spot for our last night. 

Dinner: Homemade Salmon burger and Salmon Sashimi

Day 10 – 17/08/2015 : Springston – Christchurch

Our last accommodation for this trip

So this was our last day in South Island, New Zealand before we transited in Melbourne and then to Malaysia.  

Before returning our campervan, we did our last round of cycling in Christchurch city. We went to Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and got lost in the city searching for Re:Start Mall. We were just searching for ATM machines but the map made us cycle and cycle around the city. We observed that there were many constructions going on the roads.

Cycling in Christchurch

The other part of Bridle Path Rd

After we were done with cycling, we drove to Christchurch Gondola which was located about 40 minutes drive from the central business district. The address is at Bridle Path Rd, Lyttelton so our trusted and reliable GPS brought us to Bridle Path Rd through a tunnel. But strangely after the tunnel we were driving our huge campervan towards a steep residential street until we were so scared to continue that we decided to stop at a cute little home on the steep hill owned by a lovely elderly couple. They said that Gondola was at the other part of Bridle Path Rd before the tunnel. Crap! There are two Bridle Path Roads.

On a side note, they shared with us about how their house was also affected by the massive earthquake back in 2011. A series of aftershocks still occurred after the event which lasted until January 2012. This serves as reminders for us that Allah can give to us a beautiful city with magnificent landscape but He can also take it away from us if He wills.

On top of Mount Cavendish

After a struggle of descending our campervan downhill (full of drama), we finally found our way to Christchurch Gondola. It was a lovely day with bright sunshine. We were told that Christchurch had been wet for the past one week. So we arrived at the right time and weather, walhamdulillah. Upon reaching the hilltop of Mount Cavendish, we feasted our eyes with the landscape of Lyttelton Harbour, Christchurch city, the Canterbury Plains and the Southern Alps in the background.

Now we had 2 hours left before our drop-off time of our campervan to Wilderness.

Noob tip #11: Even you hate packing and unpacking, you still need to do what you need to do. Pack your stuffs a day before so you won’t have to rush things to the very last minute. You don’t want to get fine due to dropping off your campervan late just because you need to find your ... under the steering wheel.

Within these 2 hours, we had to empty the black-water cassette and the grey water, refill the diesel and LPG gas and tidy up the interior campervan. Hence, we needed to search for the nearest dumping site and petrol station that can refill the gas. Phew, we felt like in the amazing race.




It was sad to finally say goodbye to our campervan and to South Island, New Zealand after 9 days of adventure and fun. The experience was indeed unique and memorable with great weather from the day we first arrived until the last day here. And indeed this won’t happen unless with the will of Allah. Alhamdulillah.