NZ Vacation Day 5 - Queenstown

Today was the day we had all been waiting for - the long journey (330km) into Queenstown. Back in the days of the year 2001BC (Before Children), travelling 330km would have been a piece of cake to us. We toured New Zealand's north island then and could stop whenever we wanted to, or drive on for as long as we liked without stopping if we didn't need to. Now, with young children in the equation, making a long drive would be impossible without strategic planning. Packing enough snacks (and it has to be those that the kids love eating), being able to entertain the kids when they got bored, planning our pee breaks (basically no one is allowed to stop for a pee break unless one of the kids need to go!) and having the driver step on the gas and driving as fast as safely possible to cover as much distance as we can as soon as DD dozes off, are all part of the battle plan.

Here we are, at an unscheduled pit stop. DD was getting annoyed as she was tired but couldn't fall asleep, and couldn't get out of her car seat. When she wasn't interested in snacks or songs anymore, and nothing could distract her from crying, we knew that we had to stop. While I nursed DD, the males got out to enjoy the scenery and to empty their bladders.


Here's the little stream where I presume the boys had a pee. I certainly hope there were no guided tours somewhere downstream with the tour guide encouraging tourists to take a drink from the "pure" mountain spring water.


After coaxing DD back into her car seat, we drove on for about two more hours before finally getting our first view of the beautiful scenery that awaited us as we neared Queenstown. Behind us was probably Lake Hawea, and the next picture, Lake Wanaka. We weren't sure if we were identifying the correct lakes as we drove pass them.


Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka lie beside each other, with a small strip of land called The Neck (1000m wide) separating them both. These two lakes were supposed to have been excavated by huge glaciers more than 10,000 years ago!


It was past lunch time, so we decided to stop at the Puzzle Cafe in Puzzling World, Wanaka, for a quick lunch before heading into Queenstown. Puzzling World in Wanaka is a tourist attraction "specialising in puzzling eccentricity". It has a maze, rooms with optical illutions, "eccentric architecture" and other oddities. The cafe has several puzzles to keep diners occupied during a meal too.

The picture below shows the Leaning Tower of Wanaka, which appears to have been pulled out of the ground, balanced on one corner of the Tower and leaning at an angle of 53 degrees to the ground. Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa only leans at an angle of six degrees to the ground.


Here's a picture of the family using a Roman-style toilet, which were just holes on a "bench" with running water under the seats. Apparently, the Romans used to carry on them a brush as part of their personal toiletries, to be used in place of toilet paper! In the picture, DH was pretending to use his handphone while sitting on the toilet. Oh, and me pretending to have a stomachache.


DH again, this time pretending to be severely constipated!


After lunch, a quick 30-minute drive and we were at Villa Del Lago, where we stayed for 3 nights. This self-contained house, built slim and tall like many houses in Queenstown (it had 3 floors - top floor had one bedroom, middle floor was the main level with kitchen, living and dining area, and a "basement" with 2 bedrooms. As you can imagine, we had lots of exercise during the 4 days we were in Queenstown, especially with chasing the kids up and down the stairs!), had a magnificent view of Lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables mountain ranges. The view was so beautiful, and the house was so clean and tidy that we had a very pleasant stay at Villa Del Lago. It was great waking up to beautiful scenery, or coming home after a tiring day out to enjoy the view we had.


The beautiful scenery once again, taken from the balcony.

My Little "Aunty"

I have no idea where DD learnt to carry her handbag in the following manner, but she does have this, well, "aunty" way of carrying her bag. She'll either carry it on her shoulder like this, with the bag squashed tightly under her arm, or sling it on the hook of her arm (see the next picture).


She'll then shuffle along, taking small but quick steps. Her bag usually contains her baby doll, a small Pooh bear and a clock-cum-calculator device which she pretends is her handphone.


In case anyone was wondering, yes, that's a Vera Bradley bag. She's starting young! :P

Lamborghini Gallardo!

I dropped by United Square a while ago to pick up some groceries when I saw this car in the car park. It's a Lamborghini Gallardo! How often would one see a Lamborghini parked in a crowded car park?


According to Wikipedia, from the time the Gallardo was in production (2003) to 2009, only 9510 have been built. And here's one of them! I wonder how many more Gallardos can be found in Singapore.


By the way, can someone please tell me how to earn obscene amounts of money to stand a chance of affording a luxury car? I'm obviously in the wrong profession now! :P

Visit to Ang Mo Kio Fire Station

DS' school organized a visit to the Ang Mo Kio Fire Station last weekend. DD and I tagged along. :) In Singapore, fire stations have a structured programme for groups of 10 or more people wanting to visit the fire station. It's free of charge, but an advanced booking two weeks prior to the scheduled visit is required. For groups of less than 10 persons, all fire stations except Jurong Island Fire Station have open houses every Saturday morning from 9am to 11am. During the open house, walk-in visitors are welcome with no registration required.

DS got to wear a real fireman jacket and helmet! These thick and heavy fire-resistant jackets protect the brave firemen when the fire is too close to them. However, as the jackets are not fireproof, the firemen have to spray water around themselves while walking through or near fire to prevent getting burnt.


DS got to sit in the driver's seat and pretended to drive the fire-engine!


DS also got to sit on a Fire Bike with his teacher, Ms Ida! The Fire Bike can quickly respond to small fires and is equipped with an Impulse Water Canon. An Impulse Water Canon is a hand-held fire-fighting equipment that can fire out small amounts of water at high velocity to put out small fires.


Here's a real fireman, all decked out in his full gear - helmet, fullface mask, BA (Breathing Apparatus, a cylinder which provides breathable air), fire-resistant jacket, pants and boots.


DS posing beside the Red Rhino, an all-terrain vehicle. The Red Rhino, also known as the Light Fire Attack Vehicle, is unique to Singapore and found nowhere else in the world! It is able to travel off roads and also maneuver within small spaces such as HDB* carparks and HDB void** decks! What a brilliant idea, proudly designed and conceptualised in Singapore, and even built by a local company, ComfortDelGro!


And finally, DS posing in front of a fire engine. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the fire station and the firemen were happy to answer any questions that the kids (and adults!) had. The firemen even demonstrated how they slid down the fireman's pole, "Singapore style". Apparently, the way our Singapore firemen slide down the firepole is somewhat different from how their American counterparts do it. I guess in many ways, we are really "uniquely Singapore"!


*HDB stands for Housing & Development Board, which is Singapore's public housing authority and in charge of all public housing in Singapore.
**Void decks are typically found under apartment blocks built by HDB. Void decks occupy the ground level and apartments usually start from the second level onwards.

NZ Vacation Day 4 - Fox Glacier (Part II)

After a satisfying lunch at Matheson Cafe (at Lake Matheson), with great views of Mt Cook and Mt Tasman, we headed off to do the Fox Glacier Valley Walk. We were supposed to be able to see the terminal face of the glacier after a 25-minute walk. Unfortunately for us, the walk was closed due to the bad weather.


In the picture below, the glacier can be seen (just beyond where the men were standing). You can also see the heavy fog blanketing the mountains that day.


The outflow from the glacier forms the Fox River in the picture below. Large blocks of ice can be seen in the river.

Since we couldn't do the walk, we spent quite a bit of time in the rain admiring the views in the area. The kids, warm and dry in their water-resistant winter jackets and water-proof rain pants, kept themselves entertained by searching for pieces of unique-looking rocks.


I guess we'll have to come back to Fox Glacier, since we weren't able to see what we wanted to see today - the terminal face of the glacier and also the "mirror" effect of Lake Matheson. Nevertheless, we had a lovely and relaxing day. We were going to end the day early in preparation for a long drive into Queenstown the next day.

NZ Vacation Day 4 - Fox Glacier (Part I)

We only spent one night in Hokitika as that was meant to break up our journey from Christchurch to Fox Glacier. Fox Glacier was an easy 160km from Hokitika and along the way, we stopped to see Lake Matheson, which was just 5 minutes' drive from Fox Glacier's town centre.

Lake Matheson is supposed to be a photographer's dream. The waters of Lake Matheson are dark brown in color, due to the natural leaching of organic matter from the surrounding forest floor. On a calm day, the dark-colored waters create an ideal reflective surface, much like a mirror. Reflections of New Zealand's highest peaks, Aoraki (Mount Cook) and Mount Tasman, can be seen in the waters.


Click on the picture of the map below to enlarge it. (This can be done for all the pictures on this blog too). We took a 10-minute brisk walk to Jetty Viewpoint for our first glimpse of Lake Matheson.


Here's my dad on the Clearwater River suspension bridge, which we had to cross while walking to Lake Matheson. The Clearwater River drains off the lake and the water is supposed to be brownish under the bridge but quickly becomes clear thereafter. We forgot to see if that was true as it was so windy and cold! We had just focussed on walking quickly to see Lake Matheson, worried that the kids might get too cold.


And finally, here we are at Jetty Viewpoint, to get our first view of Lake Matheson. And boy were we disappointed! There was nothing spectacular about the lake and no mirror image to speak of! Of course, that was because we were not there on a "calm" day. :( Instead, it was windy and raining, so the "mirror" effect was totally gone. You can see Lake Matheson behind us. (We quickly took this shot of ourselves instead of asking my dad to take a picture of us as we were worried the kids might fall into the water if they were unsupervised! The viewing platform was right by the water's edge!)


Lake Matheson once again, this time without us blocking the view. :P


But I know how beautiful Lake Matheson can be, from pictures seen on the internet and also from these picture-perfect shots taken by Uncle Soon Leng just a week before we visited Lake Matheson. Look at the mirror image of the trees and mountains on the surface of the water! It's too beautiful for words!


Another shot taken by Uncle Soon Leng. Thanks for letting me use your awesome pictures! :)

NZ Vacation Day 3 - Heading to Hokitika

We woke up feeling quite refreshed after a good (and much needed!) night's sleep, eager to start our drive cross-country towards Hokitika. The vehicle we rented was the largest (if you don't include mini-buses!) available from Hertz. It was a Toyota Prado, an 8-seater 4WD. Here's what our Prado looked like from the outside.

And here's what it looked like on the inside. We had DD and me on the 2nd row, and DS beside all the luggage in the 3rd row. As DD is still rear-facing in her car seat, all you can see of her is her leg sticking out.

We started off from Christchurch with the weather very nice, sunny and warm. Almost reaching 20 deg C, I think. But along the way, it started to rain heavily and the temperature dropped to the low teens. The men (DH and my dad) were pretty ill-prepared for this low temperature, wearing only their fleece jacket above a t-shirt or shirt. Hehe. They totally did not expect the change in weather given that Christchurch was warm and beautiful! The kids and I, on the other hand, were warm and toasty. :) The picture below shows the dark clouds above as we were driving along.

We finally found a nice restaurant where DH spent quite a while in front of the fireplace drying himself off. The men had earlier stopped for a pee break and had gotten quite damp running from the car to the toilet and back under the rain. The picture below shows the 4 of us in front of the fireplace, trying to get some warmth!

The kids, being very much into Power Rangers (for some reason, DS loves the show very much), started doing their so-called "Power Ranger poses". This picture below is blurred, but you can see DD doing some weird pose!

Another picture with silly Power Ranger poses!

We finally arrived at Annabelle Motel in Hokitika at 3.30pm, 5.5 hours after leaving Christchurch! The distance between Christchurch and Hokitika was only 250km, so we didn't expect to take so long. We had to slow down driving through Arthur's Pass (lots of winding roads up and down mountains), especially in the heavy rain. We should also have started our trip earlier in the morning, rather than at 10am. But I guess that could be forgiven since we were all so tired from the day before!