Day 9 marked the final day of our New Zealand tour. We left Mount Cook for Christchurch early in the morning as our route to Christchurch will bring us to hot spots like Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapo and many other small towns. More over, we wish to do our final round of shopping at Christchurch. Road conditions were good and we were able to finish touring Lake Tekapo and arrived back in Christchurch by 2 in the afternoon. On our way to Lake Tekapo MooooooMooooooo~ Lake Tekapo Meeehhhhh~ Meeeehhhhmeeehhhhh MEeeehhhhh x 100 Back in Christchurch Carrie's platoon of softies Round Sheep!!!! boiinnngggg~ ...
Day 8 was planned into our itinerary as a rest and relax day. No travelling...just pure staying put at the Hermitage Hotel. The weather was sucky thru out the day...snow and snow and snow. Our little daihatsu sirion was buried under piles of snow due to the horrible weather. We wanted to drive down to the visitor centre...but it took me almost 30mins to get our little car out from the snow! Eventually we got the car out and drove over to the visitor centre. But due to the heavy snowing, many roads were unaccessible/closed. Buried... Snow clearing in process We visited the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine centre located in the hotel itself in the afternoon and met mr snowman/ms snowie after lunch...hahaha...zzz... Snow...and snow.... Sir Edmund Hillary Centre Hermitage Hotel Mr ...
Day 7 started off with us heading up North of Queenstown towards Glenorchy. For those LOTR addicts, i believe the name Isengard should sound pretty familiar to you. For those who have no idea wat i am talking about but have watched LOTR, i certainly do think that you remember the Twin Towers showcased in part 2 of the trilogy. Isengard was the tower that the corrupt Wizard Saruman resided in. The incredible picturques landscape in Glenorchy was perhaps the reason why the film makers choose it to 'built' Isengard on. Glenorchy is a small town located 45mins drive away from Queenstown. Xiao Wu Gui's iced up windscreen Glenorchy We headed back to Queenstown for lunch. The incredible Fergburgers that we tasted drew our taste buds back to the outlet. After lunch, we headed northwest of Queenstown for Mount Cook where we will be staying 2 nights. The drive took us approximately 4hrs. ...
Hoping to beat the weather that battered me big time on Day 5, we decided to leave Franz Josef Villas early in the morning. We checked out at 8am local time and started heading south towards Queenstown. The initial driving league down the mountains was again marginal with heavy rain every now and then. But the good thing was the road conditions were just wet but not covered with ice or snow. As least we were able to keep the speed up as the map distance from the west coast glaciers to Queenstown is a wopping 351km (5 hrs drive). We drove thru the morning and thru the afternoon. The weather become better as the day past. Then came a little miscalculations. The route from the west coast glaciers down to Queenstown is one that hasn't got many petrol kiosk. I left the last petrol kiosk (i didn't know tat was the last) with minimal fuel thinking that i could make it to Queentown. With approximately 150km left to go...the fuel gauge started blinking. Holy ...
