My New Zealand diary

My New Zealand Diary
20 April 2010
Monday (Week 1)

Prepare for takeoff! My family is right now on plane SQ278, headed towards the most southern country of the world. The time now is 7.30pm on a Monday night. After many days of patience, we were finally on our way to New Zealand for our vacation. I loved the taking off from the airport. First, the plane picked up speed, and slowly, took off for the sky.
It was early morning when we were about to touch down Christchurch. The view was fantastic! We could see clouds which looked like white patches of cotton wool, floating below the plane, but best of all, we could see the sun rise! It was an amazing sight. I could see two colors, blue and orange.
Soon, the plane started to descend, and before long, I could see little towns from a bird’s eye view. The grass looked like pieces of jigsaw puzzles, and the mountains and trees looked so small that I could not believe that they were real! Finally we landed in the Christchurch Airport. The sun shone brightly, so I thought the air temperature should not be too cold. But when we stepped out of the terminal, I could feel the cold air. It sure was colder than I thought! After a while, I got used to it, and eventually even could remove my sweater! Actually, the weather was not very cold, unless the wind blows at you.

After leaving our belongings and settling into our new rented home,

we drove to the city centre where we saw a cathedral, and statues of important people of New Zealand. There also was a crazy Wizard in the arts square, telling his audience all sorts of weird prophecies and stuff like that.The way he talked almost made me think that it was real! I also saw people playing chess, only the pieces and chess board were not ordinary. They were enormous!

We also took tram ride around part of Christchurch. This tram was very different from the tram you see at the Singapore Zoo. This tram, moved on rails on the road which cars used.

So, the cars, buses, and trams shared the road. In case you had a baby pram, the train captain would hang the pram from a hook at the front of the tram!

That night, we turned in extremely early, at about 7pm. In Singapore, this time would only be 3pm in the afternoon! Even though we slept pretty early, we still woke up late. At about 9am in the morning! We sure had a long sleep that night!

21 April 2010 - Wednesday
Boy, we sure had a wonderful day today! We explored the Air force museum which featured the war birds which fought battles during World War I and World War II.

Daddy also allowed us to try the simulated ride in the Mosquito, the war plane and not the insect! It was extremely fun, but difficult to maneuver the plane. Jabez crashed quite a number of times, but I did better of course! I even managed to score a hit on one of the enemy’s battleships!

Of all the the war planes we saw at the museum, I like the “De Havilland Vampire” the best. It looked cool, and had two tail wings. We ended our tour around the museum around noon.
Psst, don’t tell anyone this, but we trespassed into someone’s private property! It all started like this…We were hungry, and decided to have a quick lunch, sandwiches. We also wanted to be near the Antarctic Center, our next destination. As there were no parks, gardens or stops nearby, we decided to drive past this gate and not knowing that it leads to somebody’s house. It looked quite deserted, so we decided to park near there and have a quick bite.

Just as we were enjoying our sandwiches, someone drove out of the garage, in a pickup truck! I was afraid he would call the police, so I hid under the seat. Surprisingly, he was friendly! He waved his hand at us, before driving down the road to the gates. We had a pleasant surprise!
At the Antarctic Center, we saw little blue penguins, or fairy penguins, (The Australians called it by this name instead)

watched a video about the job of scientist studying and exploring the Antarctica, and even experienced an artificial snow storm. But overall, my favorite was the Haggland ride. In the Antarctica, scientist used this vehicle to plough through snow, cross crevasses, and also to cross hills, or mountains. This is because the haggland has caterpillars, which help it drive through this type of terrain

A picture of the Haggland

The driver of the Haggland ride drove us through gravel and muddy roads, up small hills, into water, and past an artificial ‘crack in the ice.’ The scariest part was the moving up hill. Our driver drove us at a fast speed up the hill before going down again. I felt my stomach churned, but just as I was recovering, he drove us up another hill again! We also drove through water that was deeper than the Haggland itself! Actually, the Haggland is an amphibious vehicle, meaning it can move on both land and water. The floating Haggland relies on its caterpillar wheels to push it through the water. A we drove past an artificial ‘crack in the ice,’ I thought it would be frightening, but in fact it was not. I just felt a bump, as we drove over the long crack.

When our bumpy ride came to an end, we then decided to pay a visit to the Botanic Gardens.

There we chased ducks, and played a little at a playground.

Unfortunately, the sun was setting and it was starting to get dark, so we drove home.

22 April 2010
Thursday

We had left our first holiday house in Christ church and were already about a quarter of the road trip to our next home in Lake Tekapo.

Along the way, we had spotted some sheep, cow and goats. We also could see tall mountains in the distance, as we drove to Lake Tekapo.

My eyes felt heavy after the long drive, and just as I was about to doze off, suddenly, without warning our rented car skidded on some pebbles as we turned a corner, and went through a gorge, crashed into a fence, and fell into a ditch! My head throbbed after knocking it against the wall of the car. The back window at Jabez side was broken, and pieces of the glass fell onto his sweater. Other than a couple of cuts and bruises, we were fortunate to escape unscathed. After climbing out of the car with difficulty, we quickly flagged down a passing by car. I was still in shock, and could not believe what was actually happening! Whew, we certainly had a narrow escape. Soon, two couples stopped by to help. Daddy called the Apex car rental company, and asked for a replacement car. Unfortunately, he had to return back to Christchurch to sign a form at the car rental company. Samuel and Grandma accompanied him in one of the kind couples car who were going to Christchurch, while another Taiwanese couple brought the rest of us to our home in Lake Tekapo.
This is one harrowing experience I would never forget!

23 April 2010
Friday


Unfortunately for us, daddy and the rest of the family could not come home till afternoon. So we spent the morning exploring the estate. We found acorns,

apples,

and many other plants,flowers, and marvelled at the scenery.

Brr, brr… as soon as we stepped out from a coach who had brought us up to Mt John for the Earth and sky tour, I felt the cold southern wind hit my face. At first, I hardly noticed the chilliness in the air, for I was too engrossed in the splendid view of the country below us. It was only when we started taking pictures, did I begin to feel cold.

We entered the cafeteria for dessert, and unfortunately, we had ice cream and cold drinks. Before long, and even before it started to get dark, the moon was in sight and the telescope had spotted the first star. Actually if you looked closer, you could see two stars so close to each other that it was almost impossible to spot the gap between the two stars.
The first planet we saw through a telescope, up on Mt John was Venus. It was amazing, how the telescope could find Venus in the sky, by itself! Through the telescope, I could see a round little ball, with a mixture of green, orange and red. We also saw two other planets- mars, which we could spot with the naked eye, and Saturn which we had to use a larger and much more telescope to spot it. We even could see Saturn’s rings! Apart from planets, we also saw star constellations. There was orion, standing upside down in the Southern sky, the big dog Canis major, the little dog Canis minor, Taurus the bull, the Southern Cross, the Gemini twins, scorpio the Scorpion, and the longest constellation in the South, the Hydra. The Astronomer, which was our guide, also showed us a galaxy and the milk way. Both these galaxies looked a little like the clouds. It was nearly impossible to differentiate, from the galaxies without the help of an astronomer.
Overall, I enjoyed this educational tour, even though it was extremely cold. But it definitely was nothing compared to what we would be facing next…

24 April 2010
Saturday


We had to wake up early, in order to reach Mt cook in time for the tour. The ride was pretty long, and we were getting restless when we saw the largest Mountain in the whole of New Zealand, Mt Cook. All around there were mountains. Most of them were snow capped! Finally we reached the Hermitage hotel, and there, I saw a fireplace. The fire was burning brightly, and I felt very warm. I wished that I could stay there a while longer! Unfortunately, the coach had arrived to take us to the 20min trail walk which would take us to the Tasman Glacier Lake. When we reached the lake, I could see icebergs formed by the Tasmanian glacier.


First we had to put on a thick jacket and a raincoat for it was drizzling and we might get wet. Then, we got into a motorboat named the ‘blizzard’ and our captain and guide took us to a glacier at a breakneck speed.

There, we got to touch the glacier,

and even taste its little ice particles which had fallen into the water! After that, it started drizzling a little harder, and this was when I really felt cold. I huddled myself at one corner of the boat with another provided sweater over my head to block out the wind. I did not listen much to what our guide was saying, but I did see the glacier. We were not allowed to go close to the glacier for fear that an iceberg might suddenly shoot out from the water and hit the boat like a torpedo. By the time we got back to the hotel, I was soaking wet from head to toe! Even though we were very cold, I still had a good experience. We were suppose to visit the museum, but we were too cold and wet to visit it, that we changed our minds. So after warming ourselves at the fireplace, we drove off to our next destination, the salmon farm.
There, we fed the salmons while mummy bought salmon. The salmon we fed really were big! As soon as I dropped some fish pellets into the water, the salmons suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started a frenzy fight for the food! There were seagulls too, and we tried to feed the pellets to them. Surprisingly, they loved it! I even tried feeding them in midair. My hopes were in vain. I gave up in the end.

Later that night, after a dinner, we settled down and played a game of monopoly.

25 April 2010
Sunday

The following day, we had church service at the ancient church of the good shepherd. The church was made from stone, and the service was conducted by a lady who I thought was a bishop!


After the service, we had a light lunch at Uncle Mark and Auntie Annie’s house, before going down to the lake to explore. Near a man made dam, I spotted a hare’s burrow! There also was a dead rabbit with its bones sticking out. We also saw a couple of bunnies running around. Early in the evening, we explored a hot spring spa. I am certain daddy was tempted to try it out! We also explored part of Lake Tekapo and played at a nearby playground. High above in the sky, I could see a rainbow. This rainbow was so clear that I could see all the seven colors!
I had an adventurous day.


26 April 2010
Monday (Week 2)


The next day, we started yet another long road drive to our 3rd home in Cadrona Valley. Along the way, we stopped by at a town called Ohmarama. Here, we wanted to watch the sheep shearing, but because it was raining, the farmers could not shear the sheep’s as its wool was wet. A couple of hours later, we arrived a big town called Wanaka. This town was pretty close to our home in Cadrona Valley, so after doing some groceries, we resumed our drive.


27 April 2010
TuesdayThe highlight of today was our visit to Puzzle World. It was great fun. First, we racked our brains, trying to solve tricky puzzles,

than we entered a two storey high maze! We were full of enthusiasm and excitement as we raced through the passages, often running into a dead end. In the end, I decided to walk up the steps onto the second level to have a look at the passages. Within moments, we had found our first tower, the blue tower. Unfortunately, it started to drizzle. We had to make our way through muddy puddles and step carefully onto slippery steps. At last, we found our other missing towers, the red, yellow, and green tower. As we entered the green tower, a thought suddenly hit me. We were supposed to make our way back to the start where the finish was, after finding the 4 towers! Oh no, here we go again. Fortunately, we met our parents along the way, and after helping them find the other towers, we walked back to finish with the help of daddy.
After finishing our play in the extraordinary maze, we resumed our solving on the puzzles, before entering the illusion room…
In the illusion room, we saw plenty of rooms full of illusion of course, but the rooms which really caught my attention were the tilted house and the Ames room.
The tilted house floor, of course was slanted, and almost everything else! My favorite part was the chair which could upwards without anyone pushing it, or with the help of a mechanism. We all had a go on it, and it was extremely fun! There also was the ball that could move upwards by itself! And believe me, the ball really was an ordinary one! Soon we felt pretty dizzy from everything that was tilted, so we left that room and entered the Ames room.

and entered the Ames room.
This room was made such that if you stood and a corner you would look very small! But when you walked to another one of different height, you were growing taller! We had lots of fun here, and even took a couple of videos.
When we left the illusion room, and started playing yet some more puzzles, ( you would probably be thinking that the puzzles were really interesting for us to play them so many times! ) We found two games that were very fun to play with. One was called 4d Noughts and Crosses, and the other, Tantrix. We decided to buy them, and after purchasing our puzzles, left Puzzle World.
Later that evening, after playing a little in a dinosaur playground in Wanaka, we tore out bread to feed the Mallard ducks. This was fun, and I even managed to feed the ducks from my hand! After this, we drove home, and after dinner, sat in front of our fireplace roasting marshmallow, eating Wasabae peas, drinking juice, and even eating chocolates!


28 April 2010
Wednesday


We drove to Queenstown today. We took a shorter road called the Crown Range, and along the way, saw quite a number of knocked down dead rabbits. There even was a bird of prey devouring a carcass in the middle of the road! The Crown Range road was pretty frightening if you looked out the window. It was a long steep road with many sharp bends and corners. It actually ran through the mountains! You would not want to know what would have happened if you fell from that steep cliff! There also were signs that warned drivers of falling rocks and boulders. Well, that added on to that frightening thought! We also could see snowcapped mountains. Before we reached Queenstown, we stopped by at Arrowtown. There, mummy bought us each a cone of ice cream. Mine actually wasn’t ice cream. It was a mixed berry sorbet. Then, we visited a museum which rented out gold pans for $3. Yep, you’ve guessed it; we were going to pan for gold in a stream! Many years back, Arrowtown’s Rivers were rich with gold. Of course, there was a gold rush.
We panned under the sun for a while, but still no luck. In the end, Jabez and I only found minerals. I felt discouraged. I had hoped to be able to find a small gold nugget. We then drove to Queenstown. Our plan was to take a Gondola ride up the small mountain to see the scenery, but postponed it for it was raining heavily. After a good meal of pizza at ‘Cows Pizza,’ and after buying a few souvenirs drove home.


29 April 2010
Thursday

All of our hopes, especially Jabez, Samuel and I, were high. We were hoping to be old enough to try the range firing. But before that, we played a little at a playground in Wanaka. We named it the dinosaur playground, because of the tall enormous slide, which was in the shape of a dinosaur! The way up the slide started at the very tip of the dinosaur’s tail. When we reached the very top of the dinosaurs back, are long skinny slide led down, through the dinosaurs long neck. It was pretty fun, especially for Nat and Sam. We also fed the ducks, for the weather was so good, that it would be a shame to stay indoors that morning. The weather was still good when we headed to the toy and transport museum. We had lots of fun there. It was not so much of those life-sized aircraft, army transport,

fire trucks, vintage cars, excavation vehincles,

toy collections, which included toy cars, Lego Star Wars, Star Wars figurines, train sets, and all sorts of other toys, but was the yellow, life-sized vintage car, which moved using only leg power! The three of us, would take turns sitting in the driver’s seat, which would be In charge of maneuvering the car. All of us would then start pedaling as hard as we could, to get the car moving! We sure had lots of fun! We also played ‘war’ by controlling each of the life-sized tanks, and maneuver it around to aim. Soon, it started to rain, so we headed back indoors. According to daddy, all the exhibits here, were collections of one person only! Pretty amazing! Whoever that was, he must have had a lot of money! Daddy also bought us a deck of Star Wars trump cards.
A while later we left, with high hopes for the firing range field. As it was drizzling a little, daddy went alone to ask if we would be able to hold a gun. When he returned, we were told disappointing news. Unfortunately, it turned out that I was just a year below the youngest age for you to handle a gun! A there was nothing much else to do in this raining weather, we drove home.


3o April 2010
Friday


The next morning, we decided to drive up Mt Aspiring Park. The drive was a beautiful one. We saw cattle, colorful trees, ranging from the normal green, to a darker orange and brown. We even spotted two natural waterfalls. This is the first time ever, I have seen a natural waterfall. We also drove to Cromwell, and there, we visited an orchard, and even a cheese factory. I had expected the place to be something like a big building, and did not realize that the cheese factory was actually a small building! Actually, it was a cheesery. We bought some sheep cheese, and some crackers to go with it.
The best part was the playground. This playground was so big! It could afford to have a flying fox! I was the first one on it. I felt a little afraid as I swept down hill at top speed, towards the end of my ride. I felt a jerk, as the seat flew upwards with me, before getting dragged back down to the ground due to gravity. Back and forth we went, taking turns on the flying fox.

And we really did fly! One of us even nearly went upside down when we hit the bumper at the end of the ride! Nathanael also had a go. After a while, I got a little bored from seating down, so I tried a stunt. Both feet went onto the seat and down I went down that little slope. Wow! This was much more fun.

Though we did not do much today, I still had an enjoyable day.

1 May 2o1o
Saturday

I was most excited. Today, we were going to for a ride on the gondola at Queenstown. We decided to take a short cut, through the Crown Range Rd. I still had not overcomed my fear and felt dizzy as I looked down over the cliff. I was relieved when we finally reached the bottom of the road. Before going for a ride on the gondola, we stopped by at a market.

A while later, I could see the long trail of gondolas moving at a fairly fast speed up the steep
mountain. The mountain was ubundent with tall pine trees, but I could see a long skinny patch of baren land where the gondolas went up. At the very foot of this mountain, was a building, the start of our ride. I jumped out of our car, and ran into the building with my brothers. In there, I could see the small box like gondolas, ready for their passengers. i sat with Grandma and my brother Samuel in a gondola while the rest of our family sat in another. The gondola looked very much like the cable car in Sentosa, only the cable that brought the gondola up the mountain was much much more steep than the one in Sentosa which was more straight. As we moved up the mountain, I could see the magnificent view of the town below. The houses and cars looked like toys, and I could not even see people! They were too tiny. Before I knew it, our ride came to an end. At the top of the mountain, we saw a a luge track. It looked extremely tempting. There were tunnels and sharp turns on the track. I think the track led down to the bottom of the mountain! Unfortunately, it was undergoing renovation. We were very disserpointed. We also saw a brave man paragliding. He looked like a hawk, soaring in the sky searching for its prey. He was doing dangerous stunts too. At one time, I thought he would drop like a rock down to the ground!

Of course, the decend was even more frightening, and horrible thoughts flooded my mind. What would happen if the gondola suddenly stopped? Or if it would loose conection with the cable and come falling down? It was a good thing that did not happen, or I would not be blogging right now! As we neared the foot of the mountain, I spotted a couple of sheep grazing peacefully near our gondolas. These sheep were wild, for I did not see any fences! I was very fortunate to be able to see a sheep that close! They usually are timid and would run away. After a good meal at a Japanese restraunt, we decided to visit the kiwi birdlife park which was very close to the gondolas. On the way to the park, we saw the flooded areas of Queenstown, for there had been a flood lately with all that rain. I also saw a couple of kids riding bicycles through the water. It looked like lots of fun!

After paying our entrance fee, we entereed the kiwi birdlife park. The kiwi enclosure was our first stop. At first, I did not see anything other than a couple of plants and rocks. Then, I saw a rock move. It was the Kiwi! Slowly, the kiwi made its way to the glass panel, its long beak poking the ground for tibits every now and then. It was so fury and small!

Other than the kiwi, we also saw many other birds such as the NZ falcon, the kea, the rare blackstilt wedding bird, and even an owl perched up in a tree, in daylight! It was called a mopok(I might have spelled it wrongly) owl, for it made a screeching sound which sounded like it was saying 'mopok, mopok, mopok!'

Mopok owl (top left), NZ falcon (top right, Kea (bottom right)

Later, we watched a show based on the animals which we saw. They also featured the Tutara, a lizard, found in New Zealand.

After this amazing trail, I learned that the kiwi actually has small wings, it lives in burrows, and has the largest egg perpotionate to its size!

2 May 2o1o

Sunday

We visited a church, sat through the service and also fed the ducks from my own hand! But the highlight of today was in the late afternoon when we drove to the Cadrona Adventure Park...

It all started like this. The plan for the day was to watch a movie at a unic, non odinary cinema in Wanaka, after service and a meal of fish and chips. Later though, we realised that there were not any good shows to watch! I was a little disserpointed, for this would have been my first time relaxing on a sofa and watch the movie while munching on snacks. However, my face lit up when daddy told us that we were going to the Cadrona Adventure Park instead!

Let me tell you about my expierence there...

" Put on this helmet," said a man in an army uniform to me. I felt very excited. At any moment, somneone would teach us how to drive the quad bike. Finally, the quad bikes were ready for us and we climbed onto the 4 wheeled bike, as fast as we could. I was suprised, though, when a young boy about my age, taught us me how to control the quad bike! Before long, I was ready to go. At first, I moved slowly around the track, but slowly as I gained confidence, sped up. In fact, I pusshed the throttle to its limit! I drove through mud and water, up small hills, and manuvered past tires and rocks. I even raced Samuel, who too, was moving at a quick pace! After aproximately 15mins, our time was up, but I thought it was only a minute! There we were. Three boys all muddy and dirty.

Even though my socks and pants were soaked with mud, it was worth it.

3 May 2o10
Monday

Todays weather was pretty wet, so we decided to spend the morning at home.

After a breakfast of cereals, Jabez, Sam and I sat down on the carpeted floor besides the firebox and started a game of happyfamily with our new deck of StarWars cards. Most of the games that we played often ended up in an argument. Usually, the head of the arguments was started because of Jabez. This is probably because whenever he lost or had the least familes, he would throw his cards down in disgust and threaten not to play the game again. However, whenever he won, he would usually stand up, dance around, shake his butt, and shout " Yahoo!" He really is a sore loser.

Later in the afternoon, the sun came up, so we drove down to Wanaka to play at the playground and to feed the ducks. The tide was pretty high, as it submerged part of a tree. The beach of gravel and pebbles were also covered with wood, and part of a dock was parcially underwater! This could have had happened because of the rain. We also visited Puzzling World to do puzzles of course, and after some shopping at the supermarket, went home.

4 May 2010
Tuesday

We drove to Queenstown, planning to visit the underwater observatory. Unfortunately, we were greeted with unwelcoming news- the observatory was close due to the flood at Queenstown. We were disserpointed upon hearing this news. I also wondered how the flood could have affected the observatory since it was underwater.

As we walked along the lake front, daddy noticed that nearly all the sticks that were in the water were floating vertically! I wondered how that could have happened as sticks usually float horizontally.

After a heavy lunch of Japanese crusines, we went to fern hill playground for a while. There, Jabez spotted an unusual bird chirping!

In the darkess of night at home, we stepped out of the door, and right at our doorsteps, could see the Southern Cross.