Magnificient Mount Cook

Returning to the posts after a long break, this blog had gone into hibernation. No more; I have decided. This is a follow-up on the mega road trip we went back in June (yes, this is too late to write).

Driving from Queenstown

On day 4 we bid adieu to our wonderful B&B hosts and the friendly city of Queenstown. We were heading to Christchurch (up north), and visiting Mount Cook en route. Mt Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand and is part of the Mount Cook National park. Sir Edmund Hillary scaled this tall mountain standing at appro 3,500 mts before scaling the Mt Everest.

This became another of our fav places in the South Island trip. When we planned this route, we were expecting to see the mountain from a far off lookout and had no idea what we were going to do. Since there was a time crunch and a challenge to drive a long distance to reach Christchurch, we had not planned more on this adventure.

The road leading to the National park has lake Pukaki (yeah! interesting names for the lakes here) on one side. And we never realised that we were driving along a lake. The map said there was one but we found none. Soon we learnt that because of the cold temp (3 deg C ) the lake was completely covered in fog and we could not see anything!

We reached Mt Cook National park at mid-day. Stunned by the majesty of the mountain ranges, we wanted to explore the place. The visitor center had an adequate map with walkways and routes to reach the Hooker glacier. Though it was winter some of the walks were open and could be trekked. Excited on finding a map (we dint expect to do even a short trek here, specially because it is more famous with the professional mountaineers), we started the short trek of 90 minutes to see the glaciers. Though the trek was hard at some points and we were racing against time, it was worth all the pain. Like one of the route-mates said Don't give up...its worth everything.

Hooker glacier and Mt Cook

The glacier was beautiful, and the water was pure. The sight was a huge welcome, after a dreadful walk! It was similar to have reached the summit in a mountain trek. There is a strange quietness in these kind of places. Very serene and calm, sometimes eerie if you realize you are alone!!! The ears that are used to the traffic and general bustling noises find even the quietness eerie, ha ha....strange.

Stunned by the beauty and again after some patting backs for having made this trip, started the walk back to the visitor center for refreshments.

At the visitor center, we were tempted to see a 3D movie on Mt Cook and a show on our galaxy/solar system. We went ahead to view the films and ended up behind schedule big time!

We regretted badly for not having booked a room at the National park. Regretted that we will not be waking up the next morn to see the snow mountains the first thing!! Sigh sigh........with a heavy heart, started towards Christchurch.

This drive was a very difficult one. There were winding roads all along the route, and we were looking forward for the journey to end. Making a wrong call of driving in the night through huge forests, in icy winter did not prove fatal. We reached Christchurch safely and, Ravi and me cant agree more that it was a horrible drive.

Continued in the next post.........

Milford Sound

Day 3 of our South island tour was to go to Milford Sound. This is one of the world's top tourist destinations. We had made a booking through a local tour operator to enjoy this day. It saved us from driving in unknown and winding terrain and weather conditions. Also, it is a very long drive approx 5 hrs one way, and best done by a professional we felt. Milford Sound is a fiord in the Fiordland national park.

The tour operator picked us up from our accommodation as promised; we started at 7 am.

Sitting in the comfort of our small tour bus, we gazed out at the Remarkables as the sun

slowly cracked to dawn. It was a long drive and all along we enjoyed the natural waterfalls and gushing

streams along the road. Generally the main event/activity scheduled for the day/trip becomes the highlight; but in the Milford Sound trip, the hightlights are the entire day and the journey itself!!

There were a few pitstops in the journey. Among them, there were some interesting stops. One was to see the Mirror Lakes. These lakes are amazing and the reflections are as good as the original! The picture says it all......

Later, we stopped to go into the woods and see a huge river gushing down into a waterfall. The walk was well paved into a wooden path and was just 15 minutes return. The rains had made the leaves greener and the water whiter! Though it was not deep into the woods, the huge trees and the general surroundings gave that fake feeling.

After the pitstops, we reached the fiord where there were many tourists like us. In a few minutes there was a cruise that would take us to the lip of the Tasman and return back to the small wharf. The cruise through the fiord was again one of its kind, with huge, huge mountains standing majestically all around you. The tallest is the Milford peak amongst them.

The cruise is 2 hours long and we saw some marine life too. On a sunny day, the cruise would have been much better, but on a cloudy day like ours, we had to be satisfied with the views and the experience we had! We had our packed lunch onboard, with heating facilities and bevarages, we were pleased with the cruise experience.

Before we could realize we were soon heading home, from the cruise trip. The familiar drive and some more missed out scenes were photographed, for the memory treasure. The famous NZ movie The World's fastest Indian (also NZ's highest grossing movie) was playing in the bus to enjoy our journey back to Queenstown. After another sumptous meal at an Indian restaurant we were embarking the end of our first leg of the vacation.

Continued in the next post..............

Heal the world........

The very first time I heard Black or White and the Dangerous album, I was hooked to the walkman. Yes, in the early 90s, the walkman with audio cassette player was the in thing! The audio cassette was one of my elder cousin sister's and I had borrowed it while she was home. An audio cassette of an international pop star was pretty expensive and I never dared to buy one.............

I would have heard all the songs a couple of times, flipping the cassette each time it ended on one side. I remember my mom getting really annoyed with my headphones glued to the ears, and not listening a word of what she was talking. That was the influence of the songs and the beats of MJ's songs on me....I was just in my early teen probably. I only had heard about this musician and minus the internet or the satellite television, one hardly knew what sort of music was created and played on the other side of the world.

Wish there was internet to research and hear more songs of MJ then......even I would have been like those crazy fans at the Staple centre, LA. All those who queued up to watch his memorial.

Today, I have an overdose of Michael and his life, death, the cause of the death, his career, his family...blah blah blah....everything that starts and ends with him. The television is brimming with information and the web traffic is quadrapuled.........his songs are the top selling in Itunes and the record sales of his albums......

Rest in peace, king of pop..........heal the world.

Fit for a queen.......

As our plane descended into Queenstown, we were treated to some breath taking aerial views of The Remarkables and the lake Wakatipu. This small city is nestled between The Remarkables mountains and the lake Wakatipu. They say that this place got its name from the tag "fit for Queen Victoria".........thus Queenstown!

The Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu

Our 8 day tour of the South island, NZ started in this beautiful city. As the cool breeze blew in our face,we could not take eyes off

the stunning view of the snow capped mountains and the serene lake along the road. The month of June here, is the beginning of winter, so the snow was fresh on the mountains. Also, the trees were slightly green as the autumn had just passed. Soaking in the

beauty that we were surrounded we reached our Bed & Breakfast with a sense of high. Our friendly host helped us settle into our rooms and gave us some freshly baked scones to refresh. We were delighted to see that our room and the living room in the B & B also had the same view of the lake and the mountains. We were so happy and patted our backs for having booked this accommodation! :-)

After a quick lunch, our itinerary showed that we had to drive to Glenorchy. A small town that is almost at the tip of the lake Wakatipu, it is the house of many rich and wealthy in New Zealand who seek solace from the city life we heard. The weather was perfect and the drive was beautiful. There is no place like this we have ever been to....this was what we said to ourselves all the way we drove, soaking in the calmness and serenity of the nature. The short drive lead us to Glenorchy. We just stared at the mountains and rain drops that were now kissing the lake. The romance continued as we took off to return. As we reached Queenstown, it was almost dusk. The sun sets at 5 PM in winter and rises as late as 7.30 AM, so the days are shorter and it is challenging to squeeze in everything in a day's light. But t

hats the beauty of winter! The day 1 of our tour came to an end with a Gondola ride to see The Remarkables and the surrounding mountain ranges. We had a lovely stroll in the friendly city

and by the lake, and headed back for a good night sleep.

The Crown range pass

Day 2 started at 8 AM, after a sumptuous breakfast at our host's. The destination was Wanaka. The drive to Wanaka is through the Crown Range pass. The pass is home to one of the ski fields - Coronet peak. The ski field was just opened for the season. This particular drive is one of my favourites, the mountains were covered in some fresh snow here and there. They looked as if they were springled with some just the last evening! This was my first

encounter with snow and I was thrilled to see the white patches all around me.....it was yet another side of the nature I was waiting to see and touch all my life.

Things to see in Wanaka are the Puzzling World and the lake itself. The puzzling world had many mazes and puzzles and some tricks and mysteries of science. It took around 3 hours to see everything here, and then we headed straight to the lake. The water was ice cold and we did not dare to touch it! Both the lake Wakatipu and Wanaka are huge and deep, so the waves are just like the sea waves. They gently roar and splash the shore. There were joggers and tourists like us, everyone gaping at yet another mountain range back dropping the lake. Perfect with snow and a hint of vegetation, indicating the onset of chilly winter. We spent some more time, gaping, shivering and strolling along the lake. We were surprised to find an Indian restaurant even in this small town! Its amazing how we never found a problem in finding Indian food in this part of the world.......now thats the reach of our flavour and taste ;-)

Lake Wanaka

On our way back to Queenstown, we went to the famous gold rush town - Arrowtown. The small town has a museum illustrating the gold rush and its effects on the habitation of the Otago region. It was fascinating to go back in history of another part of the world all together. This town is neat and simple and has a friendly feeling to it. Every smallest town in this country has an Information kiosk, well equipped with all kinds of brochures and information leaflets, everything free of cost! This makes it easy for anyone to plan and make a good trip here.

Another day ended and our stay in Queenstown was coming to an end. Tomorrow was a day trip to Milford Sound and we needed to start early.

Continued in the next post.........

The Waitomo adventure

Trip to Waitomo was long pending, ever since we went to a place called Rotorua. In our very first trip in NZ, to Rotorua; we had read about this interesting place with caves. We could not add the caves in our itinerary then as it would have been a long deviation. But a caves boasting of glow worms that illuminates the roof of the caves just like stars and a thrilling experience of black water rafting was too tempting to leave.

So here we plan a trip to Waitomo caves. We made the essential bookings on the previous day. They are guided tours and are recommended to be booked prior.

We set out on a Saturday in one of the long weekend. The drive to the place was around 3 hours, owing to the traffic of the long weekend. We started early in the morning and were greeted by mist and more mist on the way. As mentioned earlier too, the drive in this country is beautiful. It is a mix of long stretches of graze lands and forests, once uphill and sometimes downhill. Beautiful homes with big flowering gardens in the towns. Its a pleasure to drive.

We reached the caves and were ready to start the tour of the first cave. We had booked a tour for all the 3 caves; 2 caves that have limestone formations - stalactites and stalagmites (believed to be formed a million years ago, and risen to the earth's surface from the ocean), and 1 with the glow worms.

The first cave called Aranui, is named after the person who discovered it. It was a small one, and took around 45 minutes. The formations were huge and in all shapes and sizes. It was a humbling experience to see the nature's wonder. Deep down a few metres below the earth, here we were looking at huge limestone formations. The temperature was around 10 deg Celsius.



It was a guided tour and there was enough time to see around. At one place in this cave, we could relate the formations to some veggies like carrots, turnips, cabbage head! Our imagination ran wild and we could even see a Christmas tree and a dwarf man! The ceiling of the cave resembled a big chandelier with sparkling crystals hanging down. Only difference being there were many many chandeliers with no end to one! In some places, the running chandeliers gave way to a bunch of sharp knives ready to fall off......like I said imagination had no bounds :-)

The tour of all the 3 caves is planned in such a way that there is ample time in between each one.



The second cave is known as Ruakuri, it has a small story behind it which i cant recollect now, and the word roughly translates into a dog that entered this cave first, or something like that. This is a big cave as compared to the previous one, and took around 2 hours, roughly 1.5 kms inside. The entrance to this cave was interesting. It has descending stairway in a spiral shape. Before entering, some effects by our guide, he does not reveal the spiral stairway. We all walk in a line along a railing, just like a balcony railing, and stop for some light to go ahead. We have no idea whats before us, and how are we to enter this cave. It is all dark and quiet. When we are expecting some huge brown coloured cave walls around us, he switches on the light. And there we see a big spiral stairway descending.
Once you descend it, there is a hall that leads you to a door. The door is circular, and (again my wild imagination) I felt like entering a secret room in a Star Trek space vehicle! The circular door opened in semi circles (some more effect!) and we went in. Of course, all this is man-made. For a little gimmick and excitement!
The excitement continued as we saw much bigger formations and also heard something trickling. After a few more steps into the caves, we realised that it is a river that is flowing, a further more steps and some loud noises of shouts. Before I could use my imagination to conclude about the noises, the guide told us that it was a group of people who were on their black water rafting experience. I got curious to see where the river is actually flowing, and was thinking about, rafting in a river that is inside a cave!

After some more formations that resembled ocean waves and crystals on a jewellery box.....we came to a dark spot. Up above us were these shimmering glow worms! The sight was just like a star lit sky. It was beautiful! We cud see some even below us under the walkway, but when the torch light was flashed, did we realise that there was the river flowing below, and we were actually seeing the glow worm reflections in the water! We waited to see the rafting group. They had absolutely no lights. A small torchlight with the leader. I wonder how it would have felt to raft in the dark, a couple of metres below the earth.

All these was far more scary than exciting to me!

The whole tour was exciting and was as if we were walking in a freezer, the formations being white and off white in colour reminded of ice.

The stalactites cave tours were nearing an end, and it was time for the actual glow worm cave next.
The glow worms caves called Waitomo are the most popular and takes around 45 minutes.

After seeing a glimpse of the sight earlier, we were eager to see how the whole roof looked like with the shimmer. After a very short tour of some more formations in this cave, we made way to a bay. It was dark all over and we spotted a couple of boats......just as we were wondering, we were ushered into the boat. The boat slowly sailed into the waters, and above us was a large canvas filled with shimmer. There were hundreds and hundreds of glow worms above us! The sight was awesome, below was dark waters and above was light. It resembled a dark background sprinkled with tiny lights. We continued to stare at the large space as the boat slowly made way into the other side of the river. Though the sail is a small one, the sight is worth it. These creatures so small and tiny, it is hard to believe what they are capable of.

Photography and filming is prohibited here, because the artificial lights will make the worms extinguish their light. The worms are sensitive to light and require fresh water to feed. Hence they breed in this dark place just above the water body.

Some trivia about these caves - the caves are laden with wooden walk paths and small lights to illuminate the pathway. Huge lights are installed to view the formations. Our tour guide told us that it took around 2 million NZ dollars, a handsome number of labourers and around 2 years to pave a way and lay the wooden pathways inside the caves. And I must say their hard work has paid off. It is made so easy for the tourists to see the nature's awesome creations.

It was a humbling experience to see the huge limestone formations and the tiny glow worms. And we made our way back home.

Another year comes.........

Happy New Year :)
Another year has gone by with lots of memories, good and bad. The coming of a new year is associated with lots of things, amongst them, according to me are 2 things that we plan even before the new year starts. One is the celebration, the welcome party for the new year and the other is the resolutions we take.



I am not a very keen planner for celebrations or party, but I try to do something different on 31st just so that it becomes different and hence memorable. Well this time I did not have to do anything different. I was and am in Auckland this new year.




My New Year celebration was amidst a huge crowd in downtown Auckland. My first new year celebration outside my home country. Swelling crowds had gathered to see the fireworks in the Sky tower. The building is the tallest in New Zealand, and the new year is welcomed with colourful fireworks from the top. For the first time I saw huge huge crowds on the streets of New Zealand! Compared to the population I have seen on the roads and in general in my home country is different from here, so it was overwhelming to see the people. Roads had to be closed to fit the crowds in the downtown. There were people from all the origins and races gathered to witness the welcome. This was different from all the new year celebs I had all these years, so this year became a little more special. Away from home but in a different way! Good luck to all this year :) May more peace prevail everywhere in this year and forever.