New Zealand - Pure, Magical and Wonderful

I had one feeling throughout my journey through NZ...mesmerized! 

I was totally hooked the moment I stepped out of Christchurch airport and I confess that I am still hooked!! Beauty was everywhere I turned, at every mile I travelled, and in everything I experienced.

The ultimate way to experience NZ: on you own, in a car; that's exactly what we did. We got into a rented car one morning and set out on a journey through the mountains of South New Zealand. It was a joy to drive on the roads there! There was very less traffic so we could figure out all the signs, speed limits and rules at leisure. The roads were real smooth and none of us felt any stress of driving that is such a given on Bangalore roads. It truly felt like a holiday drive, even in hilly areas and in rain, imagine that!! 

First Look

As every drive is to a destination with some breaks to rest and soak up the scenery, we laid out a route that takes us through Franz Josef Glacier to Quenstown and back to Christchurch via Lake Tekapo. New Zealand highways are designed keeping tourists in view as I observed lots of camping sites, view points and rest areas.

Makarra-Lake Hawea Road

We reached our cabin in Franz Josef by late afternoon. The cabin was well equipped and had all the facilities to cook a hot meal and trust me when I say it gets really important to have a hot meal on a chilly day! We set out to explore the town and discovered that we could walk up the whole town in less than an hour!! We discovered a place with hot spring pools and we took complete advantage of it. A hot pool near a glacier, how amazing is that!!! We soaked up to our heart's content (that's how leisurely our holiday was turning out to be!) and set out to frame the place in our memories with renewed vitality. Night drove us to seek out that hot meal we had promised ourselves and great sleep!

Rain forest

Next morning we went for a tour of the Franz Josef Glacier. We turned into kids looking at the glacier, fun and carefree! We never stopped paying attention to all that surrounded us! The icy glacier, the rocks at the bottom, the whitish stream of glacier water, everything was awesome! 

Walk to the Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

Glacier stream

It was now time to head towards Queenstown and we made it just after nightfall. We could not resist stopping by the scenic spots on the way, even at the cost of our schedule! That was how mesmerized we were!

Mount Cook

We had one agenda in Queenstown - Adventure! We set out in the morning to accomplish all that we wanted to do here, we had anticipated this months and months in advance and it was finally D Day. We turned crazy and performed the Navis Swing and the Ledge Bungy in one single day!!! The experience was extremely exhilarating and super duper fun!!! Navis swing was outside town between the mountains and Bungy that we did was on a mountain inside the city where we took the skyline Gondola to reach the top! Mission accomplished, we went to explore the town and ended up at the lake. We always seemed to end up at a lake near the mountains, maybe it was an internal GPS or something installed in us! Here we sat on the sand for a while being amused by the bold ducks who were trailing after anybody who was ready to share a morsel with them! We explored a little further and went to the nearby Albert town. We had a nice stroll there and relaxed at a Cafe there before returning to our hotel.

Bird's eye view of Queenstown

Next day was our most challenging drive in NZ, the drive back to Christchurch at a single stretch! We again could not help stopping to soak up the scenery en route, especially at the tempting sight of Mount Cook!! Mesmerized is again the word that comes to mind!!

We reached Christchurch just in time to catch our flight and boy watta ride we had!!!

Reflections Lake 

Some tips for fellow travel planners:

We rented the car from Apex Rentals. They provide a pick-up and drop from the airport to the airpark. We had booked a GPS instrument along with the car. This proved to be most useful since even though we had a SIM card with data, there was very less network connectivity in most places.

We stayed at a cabin in Franz Josef-Top Ten Holiday Park and it was amazing! You could buy some food items in the town an whip up something at the amazing kitchenette at the cabin!

We stayed at Tanoa Aspen hotel in Queenstown. It was a good budget hotel and it had a wonderful spa pool that any guest could use!! we soaked up in the spa pool one night with stars for company. It was magical.

One road leads to another!