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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

NZ Trip 08 - Day 4 Taupo & Wellington

Yes!! I'm finally bloggin abt the NZ trip again!! Damn...this is taking too long time...

We left Rotorua early early in the morning (7am) and start heading towards Wellington. Reason for this early departure is because we estimated that it will take us 6-8 hours to drive to Wellington...


The morning sunshine



Tree-shaded roads


An interesting event happened on the way to our first stop, Huka Falls. While driving on the seemingly alright road, our car started to become uncontrollable, banking left n right forcefully outta my hand. I managed to slow down the car and stopped by the highway before crashing into anything. We were lucky to have no other cars nearby us.

A snap-shot of that moment


My initial thought was that there is a burst tyre. But after checking the car by the roadside, i see no problems with the car. Though the road is iced up that might cause the road to be slippery, other cars that passed by us doesnt seem to have any trouble driving on the road in high speed.

Icy road. The green stuff are actually some frozen plant -_-



Stopped on the roadside, unsure what to do.


After trying to drive again and stopping again when it got uncontrollable again, we decided to just push on by driving real slow. I drove at 30-40km/h for the next hour.

When i try increasing our speed an hour later, suprisingly nothing happened and the car seems to be normal, thus continuing our "normal" journey towards our first planned destination of the day, Huka Falls, which is located right outside the town of Taupo.


Huka Falls

Huka Falls is a waterfall created by this huge mass of water entering a long narrow passage, thus causing this rush of water to rush through this narrow passage and come tumbling down at the end into a lake/river/im not sure =P. Anyhow, you get my point.

When we arrive to Huka Falls, its still very foggy thus we cant see much. But we still do manage to catch a glimpse at the waterfall itself and an unique, cool, scenary.

Huka Falls



Foggy with limited visibility



Still iced up branches



The fall itself



From another angle itself



Me n Jia



The girls



Where the roaring ends and peace returns



Tranquil yet mysterious



Special effect


After enough picture taking and freezing our ass off, we head back to our car and continued our journey...


Entering Taupo...

As we were driving towards Taupo the sky cleared up and a beautifully sunny weather shone upon us...before entering the town itself we made two stops: one at this small hill where we can see Lake Taupo and part of the town, another one at this unknown part of a river we discovered that is quite a nice place to just stand around n take pictures.

Seeing Lake Taupo from the small hill



HY



SH



Jia



Me



The river



Still a lil fogged up



The girls



Me n Jia



The car


And finally...we enter the town of Taupo, to visit Lake Taupo...


Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo, one of the biggest lake in NZ. And its the size of Singapore. =_= A very very beautiful place and particularly for that moment we were there, blessed with extremely good weather ;)

SuperLoo requires an entrance fee to be used...



Thus i had to walk around to find a free public toilet to use... ><



Lake Taupo



Now...I'm not sure why did i climb that tree....



The girls



The Jumping Girls Episode 2, continuing from Great Oceans Road



Duck



An attempt for a group pic, with the lake visible



The lakeside that looks like a beach



Coolio


After Taupo, we commence our straight drive to Wellington, hoping for the good weather to stay.


Lindale

Jia speaks about a place where her dad always brings her for ice-cream right before entering Wellington. Since we are all quite interested in having it as well, we kept our eyes open when we were nearing Wellington for that mystical place speaks about yet cannot remember its name. As she saw the familar sign and shouted out at it, we turned in and here we are, at Lindale.

Rather than an ice-cream shop, its actually more of a barn yard with restaurants and shops for familis to visit during the weekends. A further lookup in the Lonely Planet guidebook shows that their ice-cream, are indeed famous as well =P.

On the way



On the way



On the way - Desert Road that snowed the day before



On the way



On the way - Discovered snow mountains, which later we realized is extremely common in Queenstown



SH took over the wheels halfway through



Lindale



Geese shooing us away



Approaching Wellington outer suburbs



Arriving Wellington's outer suburb


The sight of Wellington excites us, not just because we have arrived finally after long drives, but we arrived almost 3 hours earlier. Always better earlier than later eh? =)


Dinner in Jia's Aunt House

We get to stay in Jia's Aunty place in Wellington, thus upon arriving we went straight to the suburb of Johnsonville, where her aunt live, and where Jia used to live as well. Upon arriving Jia's Aunt's house, we were welcomed warmly and unloaded our luggages, washed up, and had a really nice home-cooked dinner

The view of Jia's Aunt's House at the back



The stumpous dinner



Helping with the dishes



HY with fridge magnets from around the world



Jia chattin with cousin


After dinner and cleaning up, we decided to fully utilize our time and decided to visit Mt. Victoria.


Mt. Victoria

I have to say, its not easy to drive up there. From the very beginning of trying to find the way up within this complicated arrays of roads, till finding the correct alley to turn into has been a big headache. After driving rounds and rounds around the city and Jia calling some friends up for directions, in the same time looking at the maps, we finally, found our way up.

Nightview from Mt. Victoria



Nightview from Mt. Victoria



Me n Jia


It was very very dark up there, and as a few more cars came up filled with teenagers, we decided to head back down as the girls are feeling a little unsafe.

We parked our car at Courtney Place in the city and took a walk around. As an opportunity came when both HY and Jia went to the toilet, me n SH came up with a plan for a surprise birthday party for Chin Chui Jia.

And thus....a surprise birthday party for Jia that night!


A Mini Birthday Party

The surprise is supposed to come at 12am but by 1130pm we were all tired and ready to sleep, including the birthday girl herself. Thus, when she said she was gonna go sleep, we decided to just initiate the plan and gave her the shock of her life =P (yea, a little exaggerated there... )

The birthday cake, which actually consist of 5 different pieces of cake since the only place that sells cake that night has no full cakes anymore



Jia's bday present from all of her ji mui


Sorry, no pics of the bday girl herself since she refused to let me post her in pajamas =P


And thus...the end of Day 4...