Tag Archives: NZWH

Travel

Milford Sound——The Wonder World

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We booked Jucy Milford Sound Cruise from groupon
which is a one day trip including all transport but not lunch.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound is a geographical phenomena caused by glacier.
After a long long time, the higher river bank become grass field while the lower river bank covered by sea.
One of the speciality is a mountain strike up to 1500m from sea level.
There are also a lot 100+m height waterfalls.

Milford Sound

The cruise tour will bring you along the 12km mountain sea,
Cruise you in front of the waterfall,
Take a chance to watch seal, penguin, dolphin or whale.
Some of the cruise will stay overnight at the middle of sea.

Another speciality over here is the weather. 200+ day out of a year in cloudy or raining.

There is another place call doubtful sound which share the same speciality with Milford sound, but it’s more nature.
In order to keep its original state, whoever want to visit must follow a cruise tour, then change to land transport then finally take a cruise again.
It’s impossible to reach there by driving ourself.

Around 9am, we departed from Queenstown.
The driver actively share the interesting point along the 4 hour journey:

Knot Flat, a grass field surrounded by the mountain, an image normally found on the postcard.

Milford Sound

Mirror Lake, if compared to Lake Matheson, Lake Matheson is better.

Milford Sound

The Driver suggest that this stream water is drinkable, and will keep us young forever.

Milford Sound

The Chasm

Milford Sound

Look like we have an unlucky day, cloudy weather over here.

Milford Sound

It’s time for the cruise!

Milford Sound

The captain introduce every single waterfall, geographical fact, history, mountain along the cruise

The captain also gave us a cold waterfall shower.
If it’s not winter and I have an extra cloth, I think I’ll join the shower too.

Milford Sound

When the cruise went almost the estuary, we spotted some seal.
And Thanks God a Tawaki penguin is hunting fish!

Milford Sound

Tawaki Penguin is one of the rarest penguin in the world, the hardest to spot and only found in NZ.
Their speciality is they live in bush, that’s why the we only can spot them in a few nature place.

The cruise took about 3 hours and mostly is watching waterfall.

Milford Sound

More Picture

For the return trip, we have a movie called The World’s Fastest Indian

In my opinion, the journey to Milford Sound is much more interesting than Milford Sound itself, but you have to explore some of them by yourself but not following the tour.
For example you’ll not reached Walk Wire if you following the tour.

If not because winter (with icy road), I will choose to drive myself over there.
Besides, My very original plan is take the 4D3N Routeburn Track from Queenstown to Milford sound.
It’s spoiled by winter spoiled too.

For nature lover, I suggest that never follow tour for this trip.
Because you’ll be surprise how beautiful this place is!

Travel

Queenstown——City of Travel

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After Wanaka, we’re now in the City of Travel in NZ

First, let’s we visited some village around Queenstown.

For Arrowtown and Glenorchy, both of them famous with it’s autumn scene. Unfortunately we’re already winter.
For Cromwell, it’s the Cherry village, which also know as the highest paid job among NZWH.

Paid: >15 NZD/hour + unlimited cherry supply.

At Queenstown, we stayed both, Central and Lakefront
I strongly suggest Queenstown Lakefront YHA because it have parking space, better environment then central. However, it have some distance to the city central.

In general, everything in Queenstown is “famous” with money.
Even petrol, they ranked at highest price.

What NZWHer always do if climb up Gondola and take the free skyline down the hill. This saved me 30 NZD for the the skyline trip.

I departed early in the morning and took the MTB track.
The track had nothing much to see and took about 1 hour but the reward is the amazing view at the top of Gondola.

If you wish, you can spent the money you saved for the Luge over here. The only thing you have to take note is catch the skyline before afternoon, they’ll check ticker during afternoon.

Next is the super duper Big buger, FregBurger. In fact, there are a few nice burger in NZ such as Burger Fuel. What make Fregburger so special is because it born in Queenstown, easier to brand.
However, the taste is Good, of course.

Ferg BurgerFerg BurgerFerg BurgerFerg Burger

Price: >10 NZD

Again is the minus 5 ice bar. There is another bar called below zero ice bar. Both of them is almost same (according my friend, minus 5 maybe bigger) but minus 5 have discount on Bookme during our visit. That’s the reason why we chose it.

Price: 12 NZD / Entrance + Vodka Cocktail
And remember bring your pass and make booking if you buy from bookme

There’re still a lot “famous” activity for you to enjoy:

如果你有钱，这里还有好多活动让你玩如：
NZ Highest Bungee Jump
World First Bungee Jump
Sky Dive
Jet Boat
Shopping. Price and cheaper and more variety due to competition.
You can found a lot cheap, branded, almost brand new stuff at second hand shop over here.

If you decided to spend you saving over Queenstown, remember to check Book Me or Groupon for the Best Price.

Aside that, Queenstown is also the starting point for Milford sound. You can find more tour package compared to Te Anau.
More information about Milford Sound.

That the end about travel city in NZ.

Don’t Worry, there are enough fun for you to spend all your saving in Queenstown.

Lastly, it’s time to say thank you and good bye to my travel mates!
Already miss the journey we gone through last 2 weeks.

Travel Mate

Travel

Wanaka——Village of beauty

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Drive south from Franz Josef, we came into the village of beauty, mini size of Queenstown, Wanaka. Although the whole journey took more than 6 hours, there are 2 point worth to take a rest:

Lake Matheson a.k.a Mirror Lake. You can see the prefect reflection of Mt. Cook if you follow the track to reflection island. I strongly suggest to take a stop at this place!

Lake Matheson

Blue Pool is a crystal blue river which have saturated blue colour.
Its colour is stunning and the walk is only 10min.
It’s really worth to take this short walk while have rest after long drive.

Blue Pool

Wanaka is a village surrounded by snow mountain, which famous with ski field during winter. There are 4 ski field around wanaka area. Beside, the sky diving at Wanaka is awesome with the plenty of mountain view. There are also quite a lot of track around the lake

However, we only have time for skiing.

Treble Cone ski Field

For local Kiwi, ski is a winter sport and also an extreme sport. For Malaysian Kiwi, ski one of the MUST DO activities in NZ.

This time, We chose Treble Cone Ski Field (TC) as Treble Cone only 30km from Wanaka which provide a comprehensive package and easy arrangement.

Treble Cone ski Field

 

The package included 2 hours lesson, board rental, 1 time lift pass and beginner area whole day lift pass.
Price: 99 NZD/pax

Beside, there is transport provided if you book from i-site
Price: 12 NZD/pax/return trip (From the mountain base)

The night before that, we have to rent some clothing in the town. A Full set water proof cloth is required for us if we didn’t want to get wet and cold whole day
Price: 20 NZD/pax

During the day, we wait the shuttle bus at the base of the mountain. They will deliver us to the top by using the dangerous mountain road. Never get up the hill by yourself if you don’t have any experience and snow chain.

After registration, we received an ID for whole day use.

Treble Cone ski Field

Then, we had to chose our board to learn, there are 2 types:

Ski, with 2 board and 2 stick, easy to learn hard to master
Snowboard, with only a board, hard to learn easy to master

Because I’m not good in sport, I chose Ski.

Treble Cone ski Field

Next, we’re divided into 2 groups, ski and snowboard for our 2 hours lesson. The lesson included forward, break and turn.

Forward – the trick to ski forward without expanding your leg.
Break –  a MUST learn skill, it’ll save your life and the 2 stick you hold no breaking purpose.
Turn – It’s simple turn, not drifting on the snow.
For this three, the only tips is use the frictional force provided by the board side(break pad) to achieve speed different.

Lastly we able to perform the 3 trick after many fall, thanks to our coach.

Treble Cone ski Field

Actually falling on snow is soft is falling on sponge, but it can be serious if you go too fast. After lesson, we’re free to play around the beginner area. We also have to learn how to use the stick to pull us up the beginner hill

A beginner hill is a little slope which have 4 stage. Angel for each of them is around 2, 3, 4, 5 degree. It seem small but the 2 degree slope can send you down the mountain if you didn’t break well.

And that’s the reason ski is also an extreme sport. Afternoon, we take the lift to the top of the mountain which located 1000m higher and the starting point for intermediate and expert area.
I believe no beginner can ski down back safely because the slope over here is around 20-80 degree.

Can you imagine the speed when you skiing at 20 degree slope when 2 degree have the power to send you down the mountain?

Treble Cone ski FieldTreble Cone ski Field

However, the view over the mountain top is amazing!

At the end of the day, thanks God I able to ski from the final stage in beginner area. I also successful perform a ski jump and drifting. At least I do pretty well for this life time experience. Aside skiing, we also visited the Puzzling World.

Puzzle House

There are 2 areas in Puzzling world, illusion room and mae illusion room for people like sight seeing, maze for people energetic. Both of them require entrance fee but cheaper if combo.

Due to time limitation, we only visited the illustion room
Price: 14 NZD/pax

I think the greatest attraction point is the Ames Room which is more interactive. Most of the others we can found it online. With that price, I suggested you go for combo if possible.

After Puzzle House, we’ll be the pearl of south island, Queenstown!