A Day Around Queenstown

After almost 10 hours of driving along the scenic road, we finally reached Queenstown! Due to my frog-under-coconutness, I didn’t bother to ask or google about New Zealand before heading there hence I thought that this Queenstown is some quaint place that I must SO brag about when I get back. Well, turns out the entire world knows about Queenstown. -_-

We arrived in the adventure capital when all was dark and we didn’t even know that right in front of the bach that we were staying at was the magnificent Lake Wakatipu. The whole of Queenstown is situated around this beautiful lake!

The impending mess of two families.

One brother with a blocked nose.

There was a fireplace! But due to everyone’s inexperience with lighting a fire/Uncle Dan’s claims that the logs were wet, we didn’t use it. Nifty thing though.

Artistic Adrienne and her Wacom tablet.. I should have taken some photos of her drawings. She gets her inspiration from Sonic the Hedgehog and imho, she draws better cartoons than the cartoon itself!

Another thing that is awesome about this bach (a holiday home rented out to tourists but owned by someone else who lives far away) is that it has an extremely well equipped kitchen! A huge fridge, spices in a spice rack, a dishwasher, two ovens, a microwave, utensils, plates, mugs, kettle…you name it!

There’s a double story room at the back of the bach with a tiny attached kitchen too! It has a fridge AND a microwave! Ahhh!! This place is even more equipped than my own house.

The bach has three rooms. Popo, Mervyn and myself took the biggest one. Adrienne was supposed to join us but she preferred to be with her parents.

Mervyn’s corner in that humongous room.

The Tung family’s bedroom.

A view of the upstairs’ rooms.

The upstairs toilet.

The staircase. Sorry lah must showcase the whole house. Hopefully you’ll be enticed to rent it! 😀 Very cheap only! NZ1000 for four nights! Divide that by eight people! Actually there’s no limit to how many you can cramp into that bach.

Mervyn in the morning.

The staircase in the morning. I know it’s super mo liu but I think the place looks different in the day hence the photos. Shut up and keep scrolling.

The Jolene’s touch. Not unlike Midas’ touch.

The view from Mervyn’s window. Too awesome right?!

My brother is clearly not a morning person.

The fully functioning kitchen in the morning.

Adrienne brought her Wii along to entertain all of us. Actually most of the time she’ll be engrossed with her Sonic The Hedgehog game.. after we make her feel guilty about ignoring us, she’ll let us play some Wii sports on it and make ugly avatars for us. Complete with moles and all!

The family that owns this bach has their shelves stocked full with books, magazines and boardgames. There’s even a telescope at the back! The cupboards in my room even had prams and toys for babies!

I realized I didn’t get a night shot of mum and dad’s loft. From the ground floor, you go up a level and it’s the bathroom with some landing space where they put their suitcases.

Aforementioned staircase.

After the first level, a narrow staircase leads you to the bedroom proper. Tiny little thing but someone’s gotta give. Thanks mum and dad for taking the room with the highest possibility of being scary!

The view from mum and dad’s bed.

The bach even comes equipped with a balcony but it was too cold out to be doing any barbecuing.

When we woke up it was still very cloudy but after awhile, the clouds parted and we were treated to a sneak peak of the amazing view! The mountains that you see in the picture are called The Remarkables, one of the three ski resorts in Queenstown. More Lord of The Rings footage was shot there!

A shot of our bach as dad and Uncle Dan were backing out from the drive way.

The troop all bundled up as we explored Queenstown.

Baren tree again!

Don’t know what Adrienne was doing.

One of the window displays! I bought one of those puffy little sheep!

In the center of Queenstown are all their shops – restaurants, souvenir shops, ski rentals, boutiques, bookshops etc.

Adrienne makes herself comfortable.

Mervyn cannot resist cute things. <3

Neither could we. This was when I discovered that Adrienne loves soft toys! I thought her only interests were video games and drawing cartoons!

The two sheeps my grandma bought for her.

Pfft, no money, so ugly.

Cute little building near the jetty.

Popo, mum and Aunty Jenny chilling out while the rest of us soaked in the sights with our cameras.

Bobbing boats.

Plenty of ducks were just floating about, oblivious to the world, fighting for food with the fishes.

More of Queenstown!

That’s how it is in New Zealand. Clear water all the way!

A duck and a drake talking it out.

Ugly duckling spotted!

All around us were people indulging in adventurous sports – here’s one! Some guy parasailing!

Up he goes..

So peaceful!

Mervyn and Dad are both extremely awesome photographers and I am not being biased just because we are family.

Here’s a link to Mervyn’s flickr and here’s a link to Dad’s Picasa.

Mervyn is more about concept, where else dad loves to capture ‘the moment’ and enjoys HDR-ing his pics.

Like a Nikon ad. 😀

At least he is willing to pose for me.

Naughty Adrienne knows about WTF but does not want to say it out. Even after much encouragement. Heh.

Gorgeous colours on this fluffy little guy here!

This duck came up for a walk.

No photos please!

Looks like the duck and the drake from the earlier photo are done with their talk.

A shock of blue feather peeks out from within one of the ducks.

What else to say but thanks dad for the tele lens! <3

Aunty Jenny says hi!

Mum loves soft toys!

Queenstown looks pretty cramped but in a nice quaint way.

We had Japanese for lunch! The price was okay, comparable to home.

Mum and her udon.

I thought the Japanese restaurant was quite witty with this signage but turns out it’s a government’s effort and it is pretty much at every other restaurant.

Naughty souvenirs! I bought Chee Kiang a boobie egg fryer thingie, so that he can serve the Boyz@AMK (his housemates) boobies for breakfirst!

Edgy signboard.

LOVE IT!

Just for you to cop a feel of the small town.

A belgian chocolate store but I was coughing so mum did not allow me to eat any. I have a feeling even if I was well, she would not get me any either way.

The hot chocolate there is delicious! There were many kinds of hot chocolate flavours!

Can’t get enough of the ducks!

And the yellowed willow!

Some boat putters by.

Another one of the times when dad would yell, “PULL OVER!” and we would get out of the cars in the freezing cold, braving the winds to try our best to capture the beauty of the South Island.

Slippery path!

The budding photog!

Taking photos of each other!

Terpaksa layan myself.

The nearby hills!

See what we found!

Quite freaky.

For further freakiness!

Ugh!

More self layan!

I think this was with dad’s G11. The settings on my camera for the last few photos were kinda off. 🙁

Tender moment with Adrienne.

Flat looking rocks!

Throwing stones in vain.

Blur but I love the moment!

Family photo without popo who didn’t want to come out into the cold.

Mum and her ever ready poses.

Dad’s like a christmas tree, only better!

Furry glove makes an appearance again! Sorry!

Must be some NZ trend to deface their cars artistically.

Very meaningful.

-_-

Heading back to our bach. So potong right, no adventure in the adventure capital of New Zealand! Just photos! 😀

Mum, waiting for someone to open the door for her. Also to show you the doorway of the bach!

And that’s all for Day 2! 🙂 On Day 3 we went to Milford Sound. More pics in the next couple of days!