I travelled North Island of Aotearoa, the land of the long cloud, during my Autumn break early this year and i covered most of the places in north island in 9 days.
Jom ikut saya!
1st day (22 April)
Dunedin to Christchurch
Started our journey quite late, it was 11am when we drove from Dunedin.
Stopped at Elephant Rock, a place where Narnia movie was set up.
Watched sunset at Timaru beach.
8.00pm
Arrived Christchurch and had dinner with F and P.We slept over at Kak A's house at Brockworth Place.
2nd day (23rd April)
Christchurch to Wellington
6.30am (pergh after subuh kot ni)
We drove to Picton which is 336k from Chch and it took around 5 hours and stopped by for lunch at Kaikora,a small town with beautiful beach, small river and snowy hills at the back.
12pm
Reached Picton it was 1 hour and 15 minutes early because our ferry to Welly was at 1.15pm. So we checked in first and walked around the harbour/jetty? haha Don't know what they call it. The ferry was quite big.There were shops in there, restaurant,and siap ada movie shows.The weather was quite bad.Raining and the wind was too strong but we bravely went to the deck to watch views.I can't stop watching the mountains in the middle of the sea. Beautiful!but but sea sickness + motion sickness. i hate this.
5.30pm
Windy Wellington!We took a shuttle to the car's rent company and took a car from there.We drove to the city and went to ex-benjians' house .
Kak A brought us to eat ice cream with them and lepak at the harbour.Cantik :).Oh ye, with some Dunedin's boys too.I slept over at Kak A's apartment.Macam sardin dah because there were a few other tesol girls were tumpang-ing there too.Haha. Lupa pulak,lama haven't seen Kak A,so we had pillow talk.
3rd day (24 April)
Wellington to Taupo
Before going out from Wellington,we went to Mount Victoria.It was raining and the view wasn't that good. Blurry image of the whole Wellington.
12pm
Out of Welly: We found a very small,classic town, Foxton on our way to Taupo. There're kincir angin (what we call it in English eh? :p) ,horses,funfair,small market and warm people too!A woman asked me where i am from and she even knows about Kota Bharu!omg bangga okay. Actually,she went to Malaysia before and she visited KB too. She said, Kotaa Bheerruuuu *kiwi slang*, near to Thailand isn't it? Oh yeeessss. *proud proud*We had a picnic at Foxton Beach before continuing our journey.
We passed by a very unique road, Desert Road and i saw a newly wed couple were having photo shoot at the middle of the nowhere cold desert. Tiba tiba berangan to have a wedding shoot in New Zealand jugak. Aish.
6.30 pm
We finally reached Taupo after 7 hours journey (380km) Had a walk around the town and the Taupo Lake (the largest lake in Australasia)And we had ice cream too!
4th day (25 April)
Taupo to Rotorua
11am
Drove to Rotorua (1 hour 80km).Stopped at Huka Falls.
We also went to geyser,the sulphur place. Paid 32 dollars to enter the place.A big big area with sulphur coming out from everywhere giving different colours of them. The smell was so bad. yekk.
5pm
Rotorua!Checked in a very big holiday house. $100 per night,maximum 8 people. When i entered the house,i was like... omg this is awesome. Check it out!
Had makan makan with the other boys.We played cards too! Can't believe H med played together with us. He even said that I look like a Makcik sebab i like to membebel bebel.Huh?tsk tsk. He even said '' Fairuz duduk makan tu'' . ''Fairuz pergi tidur,dah lewat nie'' ish.Who's the old person here nie ? haha
5th day (26th April)
Rotorua & Mata Mata
Due to the bad weather, we did not do any activities at Rotorua. Zorb?Water rafting?Sky dive?Maori village?Duck tours? We did none of them :( So we decided to go up to Mata Mata. We went to The Hobbiton, movie set for LOTR and The Hobit. I paid $63 for the 2 hours tour. What a beautiful place with small houses,lake and plants. A place created for the movies. Exactly like in the movies! But i can't post any photos of the movie set. If i post them, tak pasal pasal kena saman pulak.
After the great tour, we visited the sheep farm and watched sheep shearing. They shaved off the sheep's wool to make stuffs.
Sambil usha abang tough ni.haha
And we fed baby lambs too! They are sooo cute! Semua berebut rebut nak minum susu! *excited* My heart stops a beat watching them :p
5pm
We went back to Rotorua and stayed there for another night.
6th day (27 April)
Rotorua to Ahipara, Kaitaia
554km (8 hours drive)
9am
We checked out from the house and visited a few places there ; Government Garden and Rotorua beach (ada sulphur jugak kat sini) .
Can you see the smoke coming out?It actually the hot air from the ground due to the hot sulphur.
On our way to Ahipara, we passed by Auckland,Orewa : Picnic by the beach and Kawa Kawa.Kawa Kawa is a small weird pekan with weird people: Chinese, Maori,Indians and less kiwis. And the toilet! I'm not in the habit of taking pictures in toilet but can be forgiven in Kawakawa.It is called Frederick Hundertwasser toilet. He is an Austrian artist that design the toilet. A very colourful toilet with some weird and funny ukiran in it.
Demm.What a picture!
6pm
Finally we safely arrived Ahipara. Phew! Pengsan!Checked in backpackers by the beach.Too tired to go out for a walk.
7th day(28 April)
Ahipara -> Kaitaia -> Cape Reinga!
Views on our way to Cape Reinga :
After almost two hours drive, we arrived at the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula Cape Reinga, the place where two seas meet together creating unsettled water just off the coast.It's a separation marker between Tasman Sea to the west and the Pacific ocean to the east.Maori believes that Cape is the point where the spirit of the dead enter the underworld.It's tropical weather here because it's near to Australia (if you see the map on top of this entry). I could see coconut trees for the first time in NZ!LOL
Cape Reinga to Auckland.
After visiting the light house at Cape Reinga, we planned to play sand boarding there,but too bad it suddenly rained and we cancelled our activity again :( So, we drove down back to Auckland. The weather was bad. Raining,landslide, flooding. Omg we even stucked on a bridge due to the flood and landslide.Alhamdulillah everything went fine and we safely arrived Auckland at night after 6hours 15 minutes drive (436km).
Auckland (29th-30th April)
We spent two nights here.Hanging out with some Intec's friends. i met Qalam! After looooonngg time no see each other. We walked around the the Auckland city,the capital city of NZ. But not much pictures because i'm too tired already to take pictures.Adam was tired too #_# So i can't force him.Haiz.Kesian.
Harbour.
Giapo!Yummm :p
9th day (30 Arpril)
Auckland -> Chrischurch -> Dunedin -> Home :)
We took flight from Auckland to Christchurch. We visited the collapsed town at Chch because of the earthquake.
Evening
Drove back to Dunedin and stopped at Moeraki Boulders (last stop). Watching sunset! Ahhh i love sunset!
Alhamdulillah.Safely arrived Dunedin late at night. I was quite upset because many of our planned activities were cancelled due to the bad weather.But anyways, it was a very awesome trip. Tiring jugak because we drove all the way looooonggg from south to up up up the north island. Oh well, I wasn't the one who drove,but penumpang pun penat juga okay.haha.
So, North Island conquered!!
Bye.
