Day 7 (29 nov) - kinda boring day cuz most time spent on journey, haha


Set off all the way to milford sound at around noon. On the way there we passed by a tunnel which was made through the mountains. heard that it took a long time for them to build this tunnel. D:

when we reached there(aft 4 hours) it was already 4 plus in the afternoon, missed the last cruise(last cruise was 315pm). Thus we stayed at the lodge there and decided to go for the first cruise next morning.

carpark near milford sound. saw a kea(nz parrot) here lol.



Even the scenery at the carpark can be so beautiful. lol. This place looks like 神仙住的地方。哈哈。Maybe cuz of the mountains and the misty clouds at low heights.



Know what i found at the milford lodge? a piano! woohoo~ but the piano is SUPER OUT OF TUNE. When u play C, it sounds like B. So it’s out of tune by a semi tone. lol. But i still try to play it though it was hard cuz the tune was totally out. A small boy clapped for me after i finished playing! LOL!

And then after that we went to the restaurant to eat dinner. Coincidentally the boy who clapped for me and his father were also there and saw us, then he smiled and said “there is no piano here for you to play”. HAHA -.-

We had a VERY full dinner. We did some laundry and slept in our van. This time we had unpowered campsite which means no electricity. lol. cannot use the microwave oven but still got lights but the lights will go off if battery runs out. so, we tried to save electricity. lol. this is the 4th night we slept in our van again! and alot of sandflies! so u hear alot of piak and clapping sounds

sandflies are so dumb. u know, like in singapore mosquitos are so hard to kill. when it stands somewhere and even u put ur hand close to it, it flies away. but sandflies are so dumb that even u put ur hand there it still stands there for you to piak on it. -.-

Day 6 in NZ (28 Nov)


At first we drove to Neil beach(not far away from jacksons), thinking that penguins are there but according to 2 new zealanders who drove past us said that there were no penguins there. aw sad.

Us walking towards the beach cos the road was too rocky for us as it was untreated. there’s some really “creative” scarecrows around though i have exactly no idea why these scarecrows are here. lol.


We drove back to jacksons bay and consulted the claypot restaurant lady about seeing penguins and she said that we could try our luck because the timing we went was not really a suitable time,so she couldnt guarantee whether there’ll be penguins coming to shore, but still we went to try our luck. The bay to see penguins require us a 40mins walk following a path that lead us along. It was like trekking!

jacksons bay


when we reached the bay, there was a man waiting there too and he told us he was alr there for half an hour and did not spot any penguins, wished us luck and he went off. So we tried our luck waiting…


and waiting...






Indeed like he said we didnt see ANY penguins at all after like waiting so long -.- and just when we wanted to give up and leave the place, I spotted a penguin among the rocks!!! I was so excited that i shouted “PENGUIN PENGUIN!” LOL like there were colony of them like that. but there was like ONLY one -.-. But still, consider ourselves really lucky alr lah.

we walked back and went to claypot restaurant for lunch. The food was gorgeous. I can say of all the fish and chips this was the best i’ve ever eaten.


The lady of the claypot restaurant, who is also the chef, is a friendly lady and we even took a pic with her and asked for her email so we could send the pic to her.she shared with us that during moulding season, penguins wld come to shore to hide, among rocks, houses, anywhere. There was even a pic with a penguin hiding behind her car wheels!


And this is the day we didnt realise time flew. When we left the claypot restaurant it was already 5pm and we had just only eaten our lunch. -.-.

Moved on a long journey(3-4 hr)to queenstown via wanaka. In NZ it only gets totally dark at 10pm, so we had quite a long bright day.aha.we tried not to drive in the dark cuz it’s dangerous D:

Queenstown holiday park


went to the supermarket to do groceries and then slept in our van again! We asked for a powered campsite(which means we hv electrity in the van) cuz powered campsites are cheaper than cabins. ready for another LONG journey(4 hours)to milford sound next day. -FAINT- it would even be tougher for the driver(gan ba). xin ku le.

this is the 3rd night we slept in the van.~

Day 5(27 Nov)

we had to check out and leave the farm in the morning at around 1030am.

And then we head on to franz josef village, looked for flights to go up the glacier. In the end, we chose the cheapest helicopter ride up to franz joesf glacier which includes a snow landing (20 mins). The ride was super expensive(for me it almost equals to my one month work pay), but well, it's like when would we ever come back again? lol.

First time experience of my life- ride in a helicopter. Safety procedures were told to us and that we should NEVER EVER walk to the back of the helicopter at all times and we should hold on to whatever is on our heads(if u have) unless you wanna have a risk of losing it

Even babies need to wear headphone. how cute is that!


sceneries taken from the helicopter. awesome!



woohoo~ we landed on franz josef glacier!






she is just so cute


It wasn’t that cold as i thought it would be. i thought it would be like less than 0 degrees up there…haha maybe it’s cuz of the blazing hot sun. But wait, why doesn't the snow melt under the hot sun?

it was really a pity that we ONLY had like 10mins up there, so the only thing we did was just taking pictures wildly. Didnt have chance to play with the snow longer, if not we might hv build a masterpiece up there =/

After flight




After flight which was around 1pm plus, we wanted to go back to the fish and chips shop which we went for dinner yesterday, this time craving for pizza but sadly, it only opens at 3pm. So, no choice, we went to an indian restaurant instead. Is it a bit weird that new zealand has indian restaurant ? lol…

After that we went to the souveneir shops at the village to walk and look around. Things were so ex!

we drove on to haast (around 2 hour drive), we thought that we could see some wildlife there, but however, when we reached there the haast visitor centre was closed which means we couldnt get much info, so we just rested a while there.



Then just nice our fuel tank went empty so we went to nearby petrol station to feed the van with diesel(our van needed 80litres)while finding place to stay.

There wasnt anyone at the petrol station. After you filled up ur petrol, u just go to the machines and pay your bill(similar to how we top up our ez link card). cool isnt it? even petrol stations have these systems.

we thought of driving to jackson’s bay(45min drive) next day, thinking that we could see penguins there. stayed at haast holiday park in our campervan for the night.

It's the 2nd night we camped in the van.

Day 4 (26 Nov)


we set off to perivalle farm which is very near franz josef village and stayed there for one day(although we really wanted to stay longer but it’s booked). It’s actually considered a very small farm, i only saw 2 small goats, 2 woolly sheeps, chickens, cows, and a pig.









we saw many cows being gathered together to be milked. Nowadays technology’s so advanced that even squeezing milk they have machines to do it, i still thought that i’ll have a chance to milk the cows with my own hands!

she loves cows! and now she's really seeing real cows and not those in cartoons


Farm cat ! It kept rubbing against ur legs, like trying to “seduce” haha! ok i know it's not a right term but i think you know wat i mean.


oops my hand...


realise a stain on my jacket? It was the cows which gt so scared of us and just nice the mud splashed on that particular spot on my jacket. My godparents laughed and laughed… lol so mean right.. especially gan ba -.- 幸灾乐祸 ！！！



Now moving on to see the chickens..




After seeing the animals, we had fish and chips for dinner at franz josef village. Their fish and chips were quite special, wrapped in newspaper and the chips are really big n fat compared to normal fries and it’s piping hot! yummy! sauces such as tomato n mayonaise cost 50 cents each. -.- it’s like u go to macdonalds or kfc and their tiny pack of whatever sauces cost 50 cents each, that TINY bit of sauce. so u might just end up spending a few dollars just for that few packets of sauces


Also went the franz josef glacier village to find out more about glacier flights, we were thinking maybe we can fly up to either franz josef or fox glacier tmr.


This is the cabin we stayed in the farm. Pardon for the mess. lol. The place felt so homely that I even watched tom and jerry, looney tunes with the kids. lol.
it’s sad that we can only stay one day ):


Farm ppl gave us a few farm eggs! 100% natural eggs which came from chickens from the natural environment! these egg yolks are especially yellow. These chickens are allowed to go freely as they want. So unlike singapore, chickens stuck in factories for their entire life and they are given jap so they lay bigger eggs?

this is the 2nd night we stayed in a proper cabin...

Day 5 to be continued...

Day 3 (25 Nov).Since it's 25 Nov alr I’ll treat it as day 3 (counting from 23 Nov).


the view of amber park in the morning from inside the van. haa



heading to the campervan shop for our seat belt to be fixed!





our campervan!



He’s Mark who helped us to fix the seat belt and gave us extra few days for the rental of the van! FOR FREE! so nice of him (: we actually only rented the van for 5 days, now we can have it for the whole trip. wooo~ not scared of having to sleep on the streets alr. HAHA.


After that, we head off to our very first destination, arthur’s pass! Ard a 2 hour journey.If u wanna know where it is, u can click on the map to enlarge (:



On the roads


Some sceneries taken while on the journey to arthur’s pass







Cows and lambs can be seen almost everywhere. U look left, there's cows. U look right, there's lambs. lol.







many new zealand roads have one lane bridges, which is narrow and small. yikes. this one's not really visible though.



We stopped at a restaurant at arthur’s pass for a meal.

there's a fireplace!






our van parked outside


Continuing the journey, we head on to hokitika and stayed there.

What can i remember about hokitika? oh ya when we were finding accomodation at night, the reception lady’s daughter went out to show us their cabins, wearing only one piece of dress with short sleeves and we were alr feeling cold despite wearing many layers with jacket lol. But in the end, we choose just powered campsites n stayed in our campervan. I find her amazing D:

That's our camping space... lol


they provide common facilities for us to use such as toilets bathrooms and kitchen so we dont need to use the van's toilet. The van's toilet is small and squeezy, difficult to do business. LOL.


we also went to the glow-worm cave nearby at night. It was totally pitch-black and we followed the path by holding on the railings.But it was still quite scary as we cant see a thing. After a short walk, we saw many things glowing among the bushes! It's amazing that those things are actually living insects and not christmas carol lights. lol.

We could have make our lifes better if we brought a torchlight but nevertheless it was a cool experience.

day 4 to be continued...