In the first week of October, we landed in Christchurch on a balmy spring day ...
... with cherry blossoms and ...
... still visible effects of the last earthquakes. The remains of Christchurch Cathedral.
The other damaged buildings have mostly been removed leaving a number of empty lots, brightly painted sides of remaining buildings and street art to brighten the mood.
The yet undecided "what to do with the Cathedral?" has led to many art pieces around the cathedral area.
In the meantime there's a Christchurch Transitional Cardboard Cathedral...
... those round tubes are made of cardboard. Hopefully there will be a restored cathedral before them cardboard tubes reach "end-of-life".
Across the road there's an earthquake memorial to the 185 souls lost ...
... one of the young ones,
one of the elder ones,
and those at home and at their offices. After our Sabah earthquake at Mt Kinabalu, the Government did the usual memorial plaque and some locals did a mural at The Kundasang war Memorial.
The Tram Stop. Trams are running around the city center ...
... with a blue one, which is a rolling restaurant.
Hit and Miss; depends on the underlying soil structure I suppose?
Temperate countries are big on gardens and parks. The Botanical Gardens had very impressive trees. Though we also have impressive trees (though mostly in the jungles), its too hot in the tropics to stroll around outdoors.
I did find some impressive scupltures as well ...
.
... though the building seem to have been closed off.
On the way to Ashburton, we stopped at "a lavender and alpaca farm". Actually the usual "Tourists to buy your manukar, merino wool, squaline etc... products here". But I must say the best of the chinese meals we had on the trip was here; both in ingredients and cooking. They only serve meals to the visiting tour groups.
The South Island NZ is high contrast "plains of fields, lakes, mountains and ice peaks" in early spring. Very beautiful landscapes.
A calm reflection.
A sculpture of a collie (memorial to the sheepdogs). Its a fun fact that NZ does not have a single native four legged mammal. There were originally only like 3 native bird species and a bat!
A small stone chapel by the lake (Church of The Good Shepherd) ...
... strangely popular with marrying couples doing their pre-marriage videos and photo shoot. Did the chapel appeared in a korean drama???
Mt Cook in the distance.
An impressive imported wildlife! A Himalayan Tahr. Some were brought in 100 years ago. They multiplied till their numbers became destructive to the local environment. Culling reduced their numbers from some 40,000 to a couple of thousand.
There were the usual visits to a salmon farm and ...
a sheep shearing demo. A "hairy" sheep ...
... shorn and looked positively skinny. Fun fact; if a sheep "escaped" and goes wild for a few years, the wool will continue to grow after pausing each summer (these will be the weak spots in the wool). The sheep may not be able to move (especially after getting caught in the rain) due to the weight of the wool and water.
Wool.
Then off to a place offering helicopter rides. The costliest ones offering a close approach to Mt Cook. All offering a stop on the glaciers for you to play in the snow and a photo op. I have never been in a helicopter (even those offered free for aerial survey of oil palm areas) and was not about to tempt fate.
The heliport was a beautiful place. Those of us not taking the heli rides were enjoying coffee and I took some great photos. Mt Cook in the distance ...
... brought nearer ...
... and nearer still ...
... to the summit by my trusty zoom lens.
Mt Cook is called Aoraki in Maori. Another fun fact; according to our NZ tour guide, there is now not a single 100% maori, only mixed.
Of course we stopped at Mrs Jones's Fruit Stall...
Their shop in front of their cherry trees...
... I bought some macadamia nuts (really fresh) apart from the usual fruits.
Then we were off to Kawarau. The home of the ...
original bungy jump.
The check-in. Three brave members of our tour group stepped up to the challenge.
Beautiful river. The bungy jump is from the old bridge, the new bridge is in the distance.
The specs for the old bridge.
What 140 feet looks like...
These boys will tie you up well and good ...
... You just have to jump!
After bouncing up and down a few times ...
They will retrieve you.
Then we were off to Queenstown, a very nice lakeside town. The Skyline ...
cable car ride to the top of the hill. What attraction could be up there?
A Restaurant (nice buffet) and ...
a very nice view of the town and lake.
This is how to make money from tourism lah!
Civilised logging; unlike our Sabah Boleh!!!
Mirror Lake. A stop on our bus ride to Milford Sound Jetty.
The reduced light from the reflection made it clearer?
Milford Sound was a wonderful sight.
There were many waterfalls. Unfortunately for us, the sea was rough. So we didn't get to go out of the sound.
So back to Queenstown and to FergBurger ...
where there's always a queue.
Mrs Ferg also had a Gelato Joint and a very nice Bakery (I had a nice Sausage Roll while waiting for our Fergburgers). These were next to the burger joint.
Their burgers were impressive; both in size and taste. Mr Big Stuff and Big Al.
The price list as of October 2016.
We stopped for a day in Auckland on the way home.
Where there was, what else? but yet another Botanical Garden.
Though they did serve a tasty and fancy lunch. My belly pork was nicely rolled up. Crunchy skin with soft melting fats.
Here's your Maori language for the important things. Wharepaku is the toilet ...
Tane is the male toilet ...
Wahine is the ladies toilet. Photo is blurred as I was in a hurry to take the photo before any ladies came out and yelled "Pervert"!!!
The sculpted palms waterfall by the front door.
I can see that the business community in NZ knows what's important is to extract the maximum dollars from the tourists,including I suppose their own vacationers
We Sabahans must learn from them.
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