Road Trip To Queenstown, New Zealand

Back in August, the entire Lai household made a trip to Christchurch to visit my dad’s old colleague’s family.

It was sunrise when we were approaching New Zealand. I gave my mum my digital camera and she took this picture. SO PROUD OF HER!

Mervyn and a kiwi.

The kiwis in NZ are so much sweeter than the ones back home! However, when I got back to Malaysia, kiwis were being promoted left and right for their Vitamin C benefits. Don’t know why.

Dad and mum devouring more kiwis.

Meet Auntie Jenny and Uncle Daniel! They were such fantastic hosts during our one week stay in NZ!

Auntie Jenny provided us with fluffy bedroom slippers to curb the cold NZ floor. I was really glad that I was there during winter!!

Almost all the windows looked like this!

Enjoying the cold weather in their garden.

Somehow dad looks kinda short here.

Not quite frost but the water droplets just look extra white. Wonder why!

My room! Loved the sheets, loved the frosty window.. ahh!

Ugh.. ignore my stupid watermark. This is OkieDokie who made me a flower balloon!

The inside of a NZ mall!

Aforementioned flower and brother.

It’s always interesting to visit a foreign grocery store. there are so many things that are different from what we have back home!

Mum showing off her skills.

And..uh, dad too.

Meet Adrienne! Uncle Dan and Auntie Jenny’s daughter! Her artwork is superb for an 11 year old. I’m trying to get her interested in make-up and pink stuff and she throws it all back at me. Sigh. 🙂 One day, one day.

Have you tried wholemeal pasta before? Tastes damn nice!

The very next day, we embarked on a 7-8 hour drive to Queenstown, which is hailed as the Adventure Capital of The World!

Some random cemetery.

Photographing my brother in his element.

Love this picture of Adrienne! She’s a very good kid model. All the innocence and happiness so evident!

Beautiful bare branches in the winter time.

I think this was when we were in Darfield..which is where the epicentre of the earthquake was. We missed the earthquake by two weeks, thank goodness!!

A sneak peak into the multitude of snow capped mountains that we would be seeing along our journey. We were giggly with excitement when we saw the first snow capped mountain, the spectacular sight doesn’t get old!

A sheep taking a dump.

A judgmental sheep stares at the sheep who just shat.

Gorgeous picture of Uncle Dan and Adrienne.

Father and daughter moment. <3

Some lambs.

From time to time we would just stop the car at the side of the road and go trigger happy. That’s pretty much how our 8 hours drive became a 10 hours drive.

Horsesss! With fuzzy fur too!

And a patch of hair!

I think I have more photos of Mervyn’s almost butt crack than his face itself.

I like dried grass..so you’ll have to sit through the next few photos patiently.

Mmmm.

Attempt at being artsy fartsy.. lovely rusty barbed wire, eh?

Love the way the dew gorgeously hangs from the grass looking like tiny flowers.

Adrienne was hooked onto photography as well. This little girl has awesome stop motion animation skills!

Dad scolded me after this photo was taken saying that I could easily become some NZ roadkill.

Teaching Adrienne the many ways one can enjoy herself in front of a camera.

Acorns!!

Dad would pull over whenever we came across a breath taking view. And there were many!

Mum and Mervyn.

Myself and mum!

Mervyn braves the cold to get his one million dollar shot.

Obligatory touristy picture.

I still could not get enough of the snow capped mountains.

As with the bare trees.

One thing I loved about our road trip to Queenstown were the small towns that we stopped over! We even stopped at Twizel for dinner on the way back! Twizel is where some of the Lord of the Rings footage was shot at!

Small town knick knacks.

More small town knick knacks.

And all the small towns had proper cafes.

I didn’t realize that there was actually frost on the road until I edited the picture!

Hello!

Majestic hills/mountains that could even block out sunlight!

The tumbling hills.

It was a long journey but we were so entertained by the scenery that it wasn’t boring at all.

Land of the long white cloud!

That’s dad – every 20 minutes of driving.

Some farmers’ homes.

Another stop over!

Beware of horses and horsemen.

So dry and gorgeous!

We made sure to stop over at Lake Tekapo. On a still day, you could get a mirror image of the snow capped mountains on the lake!

Camera shy seagull.

Dad and I being fascinated over this puddle of water.

Reciprocal shot.

One more of the tiny puddle before moving on.

One thing great about New Zealand is that the beautiful sights are so peaceful – no tourists to photobomb your pictures.

And the star of your own photo is yourself! I am referring to my super packed Shanghai trip, which will probably be posted up in my next life. I will put it up, I will I will I will.

Adrienne runs down to join me by the lake.

I couldn’t decide which photo to put!!

And a zoomed out one. LOL.

This is Lake Tekapo, a glacier lake.

Touristy photo!

Adrienne is so brave.

Adrienne unintentionally photobombs dad’s solo photo.

Dragging Mervyn into the shot.

See how clear the water is!

Little photographer.

Mervyn and his reflection.

Mervyn the mountaineer.

The adults weren’t too adventurous and decided to stay away from the rocks.

Popo shies away from the public.

Where else Mum totally revels in it.

Just finding some excuse to pose with my fluffy purple gloves! <3

Aunty Jenny, a chunk of leftover snow from the cold weekend and a super colorful truck at the back!

I got Aunty Jenny to kick the snow for me!

Emo seagull.

Dad catches his prey.

A lone and faraway church.

Mervyn farting?

Managed to convince Mervyn to snap this photo of me. Takes some effort to talk him into carrying my camera. He has a lot of requirements – he needs to get all his artistic shots first before he can layan me, if I am wearing my bling bling glasses, he won’t photograph me out of disgust. 😐

Nice photo of Mervyn!

Dad’s suffering face as we bypassed beautiful sceneries but could not stop as Uncle Dan was going full speed ahead with no intentions of slowing down for another stop over.

Mervyn in the wilderness.

Uncle Dan and Aunty Jenny stopped over to get our dinner for the night! FRESH SALMON!!!

A salmon’s worst nightmare.

The water was kinda murky, quite unlike the glacier water that we have been seeing all along the way.

With popo, who is not a salmon fan.

It was about NZ15.00 for a kg of salmon! Still pretty much a steal as compared to the exorbitant amounts we fork out for our pathetic sashimi slices.

Peaceful surroundings for the salmon to breed.

Ohm.

This Adrienne is like an energizer bunny.

See what I mean?

Something to remember our memorable Salmon Farm trip with.

Bye Bye Salmon Farm!

Since there’s a crazy amount of photos from my NZ trip, as you have probably guessed, I am going to split up my posts. So till the next one!