New Zealand is amaaaaaazing
It really is. My family and I just came back from a 2 week adventure on caravan, and it was an adventure of a lifetime, and naturally, I have a lot to talk about and a lot of pictures to share. Its been so great, I felt so great, everything was so booootiful, I hope heaven looks like New Zealand.
Okay, so Im going to try and be objective here, honest.
I'll be doing a few post, haven't planned how exactly I plan to compartmentalise all the post I plan to write, but I do know that I'll do one exclusively for caravan travelling/alternatives, my sky diving and whale watching experiences, and whatever else I feel like writing about really (you know me and my lack of blogging discipline- side note, maybe that should be my new years resolution?)
So today, I'll be telling you about my route, as well as the top 3 places I visited, in terms of scenery.
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New Zealand is divided into 2 island, North Island and South Island. Simplistically, North Island has bigger towns, the capital is there, and most if not all of the nations administration is based somewhere in the North Island. South Island is more rural and scenic in my opinion. The towns are smaller, the farms are big and a plenty. Its less busy. Driving around in a caravan, we found that roads on the south island were smaller but they were never seriously busy, while the bigger roads in the north sometimes got very busy. Different challenges, all good just the same if you ask me. Okay, so, we started our adventure in Christchurch. From there we headed south, all the way to the tip, then we head back up, to Christchurch, crossed over to Wellington, drove up to Auckland then went home. But let me just break that down for you, our exact stops were :
Christchurch -> Tekapo -> Queenstown -> Te Anau -> Invercargill -> Dunedin -> Christchurch -> Picton -> Wellington -> Napier -> Rotorua -> Papamau Beach -> Manukau -> Auckland
We made many many many stops from one place to the other. These stops are just where we camped overnight, but our actual activities were all done along the way. We slept in a different town every night, which meant we didn't have much time in each place but we got to cover a whole lot of ground and see many many things.
New Zealand is so beautiful, it looks like when God was creating it, he spent a little more time and turned up the brightness and saturation and everything. Also, the people there are super friendly! Like every where we went the waiters and waitresses and the people selling tickets were polite and it seemed like everyone is always in a genuinely nice, friendly mood. Also, people there are ready to help you with your trip. There were a few times our activities had to get cancelled due to the weather and stuff like that, but every time the very company we booked with would ring up other companies and totally plan the next best thing for us. They're not kedekut business at all, or at least from what I see, but Ayah told me they probably get commission for getting bookings for other companies so maybe its not like purely altruistic but in any case thats a great policy. It made everyone there eager to sell, eager to recommend and get you the best deals, even from companies that aren't their own. If you get chatty with the staff at whatever souvenir shop or restaurant you're at, and tell them where your next stop is, they'd probably point out some attractions that most people would miss out, and most of the attractions locals recommend are the free ones so that always a good thing haha. Like, when we we're driving to Rotorua, we knew we wanted to go see the geysers and mud pools. The internet and tourism companies suggested this one place, but we had to get tickets for admission. But right before we went, we were buying honey and the staff at the honey shop told us about this other place which is less touristy and slightly smaller but it was for freeeee and I like free stuff. So yeah, if you are planning on going, try find out from the locals where you should go. Really, if you're ever in New Zealand just ask around if you ever need help. If they don't know they'll be super polite about it, and if they do they'll be a big help.
I felt like I was living in an instagram picture while I was there, it was really that scenic and beautiful. Even the drives were pretty, just looking out the window and stuff (and seeing lots and lots of sheep, NZ has a 7:1 sheep to human ratio!). Its so hard to pick whats the absolute most prettiest place, but it'll be impossible for me to blog about every single thing I did and every single scene I saw. Here's my personal top 3 most beautiful places ( but even then its so hard to choose!)
Lake Tekapo
Lake Tekapo was our first stop, and our first experience at a holiday park. This is a panorama I took from where our van was parked, so we could literally wake up, walk out, and see all this. Its the second largest lake in New Zealand, and is surrounded by a lot of lupins. Lupin is a wild flower that grows in New Zealand. They locals call it a weed (ugh) but its too pretty to be called a weed in my opinion, so ill settle with wild flower *so exotic right*
On top is a picture of the lake with the lupin, and the bottom one is the closest picture I have of these flowers. I took a few walks down to where all the flowers grew and it made me feel like a fairy, surrounded by all the pretty wild flowers. We took plenty of pictures, excuse me while I spam.
Theres a church at Lake Tekapo which happens to be the most famous wedding spot, due to the beautiful scenery. But really, isn't that expected, its so pretty here. I found a place where the lupin sort of clears and its like a empty round area with the trees in the background which have quickly become my fantasy wedding place.
Aside from being pretty, you can stargaze at Lake Tekapo, and not just normal stargazing, serious stargazing. From lake Tekapo, you can join a stargazing tour by Earth & Sky which takes you to Mount John observatory, a 15 minute drive up a hill where at night, they don't shine any white light to prevent light pollution. When we went, it was freezing and dark, and were giving small red lights because red light doesn't bounce around too much and therefore, doesn't diminish the ability to see the stars. But my god the night sky there, I've never seen anything like it. It was full of stars. The tour comes with hot chocolate and brownies and so we sat, cold with out hot cups, looking up at the magnificent sky. They do research at Mount John, which is why we couldn't interfere with out white lights and cameras and phones and all that. We learned a bit about the stars, and greek as well as Maori legends that are attached to the constellations. I also got to see gemini (my star sign!)
The sky literally looked like that. Shame that this is the only photo we got, but it really was amazing.
Lake Pukaki - Mount Cook
So Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. People normally go straight to Mount Cook but we just saw in from Lake Pukaki. Mount Cook in the white one in the background. But the view here my god, amazing. We spent about an hour and a bit here, just looking at ALL THAT BLUE and theres a shop that sells alpine salmon, so we had lots of salmon sashimi.
The rocks you see are actually a slope going down, and Imran and I went all the way to the bottom right to the edge of the water. Not much to say about this place except its freaking beautiful. Ill let the pictures speak for themselves.
Batu pun lawa, haih.
Kaikora - In the middle of the sea
Say hi to my hat, which I lost shortly after this pic.
Okay so, the third was the hardest to pick. I mean, Rakaia Gorge had the prettiest clay blue water, Milford Sound was tranquil and breathtaking, but I mean, guys lets face it
How do you beat seeing a sperm whale?
Thats the tail, btw.
Kaikora used to be a whaling village, they'd hunt the whales for its blubber and meat. But after people there saw the light and learned that whales are facing existential doom, this changed, and they eat crayfish now (which is DA BOMB DA SHIZZLE). Kaikora is now huge on whale conservation, and does whale watching tours. You get into a fast fast fast boat, into the middle of the sea, and they track whales for you. The tour took about 3 hours, but we got to see 2 whales and a pack of dusky dolphins. Also, I don't think I've ever been that out into sea before, its quite scary. Kilometres of water under you, yikeys. I didn't take many pictures, which is sad, but hey my hat flew off and I got really paranoid after that.
Sperm whales are the biggest toothed whales out there. They spent 80% of their lives under water, and come up for oxygen. I don't think they eat humans, but they do eat giant squids (which are giant btw, more giant than you and me put together ). There are quite kuat one these whales, walao let me tell you. They can look for food using sound waves, and when they find something they wanna eat, they target it straight at their prey, and kind of like machine gun at you, but with sound, just sound okay. Your body would vibrate so much, that you internal organs would turn to mush and you'd be paralysed on the spot, if not killed. The tour is pretty much sitting, going out, getting told to get in really quick cause they found a whale, seeing it for a few minutes then taking pictures and sitting back in to find more whales. I actually really enjoyed seeing a pack of Dusky Dolphins, there were around 200 of them surrounding the boat! Dusky Dolphins are not only adorable, they are mighty sexy and sex driven (hehe) and have sex like 15 times a day. They also never stop moving, from the day they were born till the day they die. They even eat, sleep and have sex while on the move.
I have videos of whales surfacing and dolphins swimming, but not many pictures. Nevertheless, enjoy.
If you want to see the dolphins, I put a lot of footage of them swimming in the video compilation of my trip. There's also scenery of other things there which is pretty and amazing and beautiful. Ill insert that below for those of you who want to see :)
My trip really was amazing. We also planned the whole thing by ourselves, where to stop, what to see, so I'm (or at least my dad haha) is pretty informed about New Zealand by now. If you have any questions feel free to comment below or contact me.
I'll be writing more on this, and hopefully be writing more regularly in general. Okay, gotta go, heading to Hilton with my family on my moms side for a little city get away.
Oh and of course, Merry Christmas everybody!
Love,
Mirr
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