January 13th, 2020 Last day at Auckland, New Zealand

9AM We left for the colony. It only took 1 hour to get there.

2PM We returned and on the way back, looked for UMF 15+ honey. I found a deal buy 2 get 1 free, UMF 15+ Manuka from Happy Valley, each at 75 NZD.

January 12th, 2020 Auckland, New Zealand

9AM We left for flea market.

7PM We ate at the local Chinese restaurant.

January 11th, 2019 Auckland, New Zealand

8AM I woke up. I had some coffee with Tony and then started driving toward Hobbiton.

11:07AM We were several minutes late so they put us on the next bus available, which was at 11:30AM.

1:30PM We finished the tour and took another couple hours driving back. We visited Helen's house and then picked up Tony from his house.

5PM We drove to downtown and it took 30 minutes to find parking. We ate at Depot Eatery which had excellent oysters and lamb rack. We also had octopus, corn and fish.

8PM We stopped by the casino. I lost 100 NZD there. We had ice cream at Giapo. The place was over the top with all sorts of cone variations. Ice cream was mediocre.

Giapo icecream

11PM We returned to Tony's place and I went to bed a little after midnight.

January 10th, 2020 Wellington to Rotorua, to Auckland, New Zealand

1:45AM We arrived at Wellington. I found only one hostel picking up, the Lodge in the City for 2 bunk beds at 65 NZD. We slept 3AM to 7:20AM. We left around 8AM.

1PM We drove by Lake Taupo, which was unimpressive.

2PM We then drove to Wai-o-tapu and did a tour there. The tour was just alright, about 1 hour walking around the geyser. There is also a warm stream nearby.

7:30PM We returned to Auckland, New Zealand.

January 9th, 2020 From Greymouth to French Pass, to Picton, New Zealand

8AM We woke to leave Greymouth. We left around 8:30AM and stopped to grab coffee and pastries.

5:00PM We arrived at French Pass. The road there took an hour and half each way and was very windy. I would say the photos make it worthwhile.

8:30PM We arrived at Picton and had dinner at Le Cafe. Seabreeze was claiming that it would take an hour to get the food so we opted for the faster restaurant. I grabbed some oysters when we were all done and a coconut ice cream at Induge. Before we left Picton, I got a coffee from Induge. We boarded the boat at 9:30PM and the boat left at 10PM.

January 8th, 2020 Lake Matheson, New Zealand

8AM A rather boring day, we started driving around 8:30AM and arrived at Wanaka again. I took the 5 minutes they spent getting the coffee to drive to the tree. I took some more photos there. Joanna and Helen recognized that I was somewhere else but did not figure it out.

3PM It took me 4 hours to get to Lake Matheson. I did not find any of the reflection pictures replicable.

Lake Matheson

5PM We got out of the lake and started driving toward Greymouth. We got there in 3 hours. We had some interesting but mediocre whitebait fish at Buccleugh's on High. Our AirBNB host did not respond so I cancelled and booked the room at Kingsgate Hotel. The room was just passable for 91.91 USD.

January 7th, 2020 Wanaka, New Zealand

8AM We left for Wanaka. It took more than 2 hours and we stopped for gas and latte on the way. When we arrived, it was already afternoon. We had lunch and dropped off Helen at the AirBNB at 2PM.

2:30PM We started to climb Roy's Peak. Joanna and I got separated after about 20 minutes when she couldn't keep up anymore. I then got up to the view point by 5PM. When I saw that there was a queue of 4 people or so at the photo spot I decided to continue on my way to summit.

5:30PM I hit a three way. The right path was the correct one but I took the middle one, which seemed like it would let me summit quicker. It turned out that the one on the left was the correct shortcut. However, it was also dangerous because I was basically walking along the edge of the cliff. I finally got to the real summit at 5:45PM or so. I stayed up there for 30 minutes. Weather was bad and it was rainy and hard to see where the lake was. I met a couple from Thailand here and they told me that they were driving down today from Lake Matheson. They couldn't capture photos with reflections with strong wind. They reckoned it would happen to me also.

 

6:30PM I got back down to the viewpoint at 6:30PM. I stayed there for another 1 hour or so, trying to wait for a more perfect moment but it never came. The Thai couple helped me take some photos of me. I started my descent at about 7PM but wasted 20 minutes walking up the path to the summit without realizing. I later fell a couple of times in the mud and once night fell, I fell again. This time it was on a hard rock but I had no bruises. I did not get to the parking lot until 10:30PM. I passed the Thai couple again about 30 minutes away from summit. I then drove Joanna to grab some chicken pie takeout to go home. I went to bed around 1AM.

January 6th, 2020 Queenstown, New Zealand

7:30AM I called High Country and they were still on for the ride. It took an hour to drive there.

9:15AM I arrived and they did not find us on the manifest. I argued for a few second for them to take us onto the Rees River path. The ride was fine. We did only a few seconds of trotting but at least we got to go to cross the river red a couple of times.



12:30PM We stopped by Glenorchy board walk. It turned out that I was really looking for Glenorchy wharf which is also accessible by car. We decided to continue to Nugget Point.



6PM We arrived at the very amazing Nugget Point Lighthouse but it was very rainy with 100 mile per hour wind. I took some pictures and headed back. I didn't want to stay at Nugget Point. It was going to be difficult to resist coming back at midnight for pictures of the Milky Way.

9PM We arrived at another AirBNB location. I went to bed after midnight.

January 5th, 2020 Queenstown, New Zealand

7AM We woke up and rode our car to get to the place where we are supposed to be picked up. However, the driver arrived and told us the morning ride is cancelled due to weather. So we took the car back and stayed in until 1AM.

12PM I did bungee jumping. We had some lunch afterward. This was followed by Shotover Jet. We then went up to the gondola lift and did a couple of rides there with the luge. We then had a lamb rack at the Fat Lamb and had the same time, got a protein styled Codfather, which is the not as good as the Fergburger we had yesterday.

At the Shotover Jet

11PM We arrived back and I went to bed shortly after.

January 4th, 2020 Queenstown, New Zealand

8:30AM We got up around 8AM and left the AirBNB around 8:30AM. It took just a little above two hours to get to Queenstown Airport. I called True South so we could move our itinerary from 2PM.

11:50PM We had some sushi before taking off for the scenic flight to the Milford Sound. The cruise was about 1.5 hours. We got some free leftover buffet, which was otherwise paid by the other tour operators. The fjords were good but not as good as those in Norway.

4PM We got back and then I spent the next 20 minutes trying to book a paraglide and hang glide ride. We took the one from Sky Trek. The hang glide was nice but I feel like it would be much better if we were allotted more time. The paragliding was more enjoyable in Nepal as we were flying for longer.

7PM We got back and had Ferg Burger and some deer burger.

10PM We arrived at the AirBNB and I went to bed after 1AM.

January 3rd, 2020 Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook, New Zealand

8AM We left and drove for a little less than 3 hours to get to Lake Tekapo.

1PM We stopped at High Country Salmon. They sell farm raised salmon there. We then drove to Hooker Valley Track and walked three hours from 3:30PM until 6:30PM. It was a nice track for trekking.

High country salmon

8PM We ate to Poppies Cafe and Restaurant and had some venison, pumpkin soup and lamb chops. We drove another 30 minutes to get to the AirBNB.