Sloppy Chic

After a good night rest in the beautiful motel in Fox Glacier, we had to bid Fox goodbye and head to the next town – Wanaka, which is famous for its beautiful lake.

The beautiful beach as we drove.

The great thing about self-drive is, we can stop as and when we like, to take a wee or to capture a beautiful moment.

We were enchanted by the view!

We did not linger long as there were some kind of insects (like mosquitos but they were not) harassing us as we took the photos.

And and…we even passed by a cliff with gushing stream!

At that moment, there was only calm in my clear mind. Wonderful!

From Fox Glacier to Wanaka was approximately 262km, which was quite a long drive considering the 100km/h speed limit and some windy mountain roads.

I suffered from endless motion sickness!  Boy it was so miserable.

Our lunch at a little cafe called Cheeky Monkey.

Beautiful landscape to welcome us to Wanaka.

After grabbing our lunch, we headed to our destination of the day - Puzzling World.

Hello Puzzling World!

Touristy shot with Leaning Tower of Wanaka.

The lobby for ticketing and to the exhibition room. There are puzzles on the tables for you to play with too.

Now, why is it called puzzling world?

Because it has the largest puzzle in the world for humans!

The rule of the puzzle is – you must get to 4 towers in different corners, then find your way out again. The entrance is also the exit. However, there are cheat exits for those who are frustrated or trapped.

Back to the exhibition hall.

Inside the hall, you will find all these 3D image generated by laser beams.

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After our Whale Watch in Kaikoura, we left the town and headed to our next destination, which was the most strenuous activity in our itinerary – Fox Glacier Walk.

Town – Greymouth.

Before reaching the Fox Glacier, we had to stop by a town for a night because the journey was really long and the sky turned dark as early as 6pm. So we needed a place to rest for the night.

As you can see from the picture, Greymouth is almost a dead town! There were not many shops on the street (with 30% of them have been closed down).

The main street was even quiet in the morning! It is a really pity that the town is now deserted. It was a busy pier back then.

Since there was nothing much to see, so we left at about 8am to our destination – Fox Glacier.

In the South Island, there are 2 glaciers which are: Fox Glacier and Franz Joseph Glacier.

You can opt to have heli-hike or hike up this mountains.

We booked a Half Day Glacier Walk through their website earlier, which is about 4.5 hours of walk. The tour cost us NZD$99/pax which included the rental of boots and crampons. Or even raincoat if you want.

Our lunch at the cafe in Fox Glacier shop. Hot chocs are all pretty there!

Japanese fried rice and a jumbo sausage roll. It tasted exactly like luncheon meat.

Our hike was 1.35pm and a bus sent us to the foot of the mountain from the station.

This was our starting point. So far! *gasp* I almost fainted at this point already.

It is a 40-min walk from the ground to the glacier.

The information board for you to read.

We were told that the glacier has receded at least 1-2km over the years. We were glad that we opted the hike option as I don’t think hiking will be possible anymore down the years if the glacier continues to recede.

Every guided tour has a guide that leads and explains the scenery as you hike.

Danger signs before you can hike further. Without a tour, you are not able to surpass a limit where the challenge starts because the rocks can fall anytime!

A backpack is compulsory for you to place your crampons (the spikes that attach to your boots to walk on ice).

As you can see, it is definitely not as easy as you might think. It is rocky and also steep. In fact, it was tougher than I had expected!

I definitely regretted for not exercising daily prior to this hike. And oh, it was my first time hiking too!

The rented boots and crampons. We were told to put it on before we reach the ice.

The climb up hill was really tiring and I had to take off my jacket was I began to feel sweaty.

Hello long walk up!

It was slippery and the path was so narrow that I was not able to place my feet parallely. And part of  the ice was like crushed ice (similar to ice-kacang) and not exactly solid. So as you walk,  it is safer to hold on to the rope at the side to be alive.

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We installed NZ map on our phone so we can navigate around even more easily!

Driving in New Zealand is definitely enjoyable, drivers are courteous, speed limit signs are clear, roadsigns are obvious, although they don’t have much highway on the road, but all the trunk roads are very good in condition. And usually the speed limit is either 60km/hr or 100km/h.

Beautiful scenery along the way.

And oh, you might find huts like these which are public toilets. ALL FREE. And most of them are really clean even though they look deserted.

After almost 2.5 hr drive, we finally reached Kaikoura.

After checking in to our Willow Bank Motel, it was already almost 4pm. We headed out immediately to tour the town before the sky turned dark.

There will be another post with photos of all the motels we have stayed

Most of the seas or lakes are really beautiful! Clean and soft sand, and always blue sky. It is not easy to find garbage bin on the road but all the places are clean!

Even the stones look so beautiful!

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Visiting New Zealand was not in our planning, but since Japan trip was cancelled due to the quake, 2 of us immediately brain stormed for the next destination to go, after about 2 weeks of planning, we executed our journey successfully

We are really glad that we did this, although we really wanted to go Japan, but New Zealand is a beautiful place nonetheless

I will document our whole trip, if you are going to tour New Zealand (South Island) on self-drive, you are welcome to ask for my itinerary as a reference

*We picked a hot seat (+RM160) which I think totally worth it!

Air Asia flights to New Zealand are rather limited, there was only one flight to Christchurch in the morning (8.30am) and it’d be an 11+ hour flight so by the time we reached Christchurch, it was already near midnight.

Thank goodness our car rental Budget Car Rental counter was right at the airport, so it was a breeze to pick up our car. We had booked the car in advanced so there were not many procedures to picking it up. We rented for 12 days and it cost us about NZD$680 (~RM1632) which was not too bad. But, the petrol is not cheap in New Zealand, which is about NZD$2.2+- per litre. And more expensive in smaller towns.

New Zealand is UTC +12:00 so it is 4 hours in advance of Malaysian time, and the sky turns dark at 6pm!

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