Driving Tour in New Zealand

Our driving tour in New Zealand turned out to be the best sight-seeing tour we ever have so far. For over a period of 23 days from 15 February 2016 to 8 March 2016, we drove a total distance of more than 4,250Km.

Upon landing at the Auckland Airport on 15 February, we immediately picked up our pre-booked rented car and drove straight to our hotel. The next morning after breakfast, we started our driving tour from Auckland. For the next 6 days, we drove through the central North Island spending overnights in Rotorua, Taihape and Masterton. To see the Glowworms, we made a detour to the west to Waitomo Cave after visiting Hobbiton.

North Island Route: From Auckland to Wellington.

Then upon reaching Wellington on 20 February, the southern most city of the North Island, we returned the car, crossed the Cook Strait in the comfortable Bluebridge Ferry. For 3 1/2 hours in the ferry, we were feasted with stunning landscapes and scenery of Cook Strait.

Bluebridge Ferry

Stunning landscape and scenery in Cook Strait

We were fortunate to find a table next to 

a circular window with a good view 

from the front of the ferry.

Restaurant Counter in Ferry

Lounge and Restaurant

Then upon disembarking from the ferry, we picked up another pre-booked car and drove to our motel in Picton and spent a night before commencing our next phase of driving tour in the South Island.

South Island Route: From Picton after

crossing the Channel by Ferry from Wellington.

From Picton, we drove across the west of South Island for a period of 14 days. We stopped overnights at Murchison, Hokitika, Franz Josef Glacier, Lake Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau and finally joined a cruise boat in Milford Sound.

South Island from Te Anau to Christchurch.

After our cruise at Milford Sound, we drove eastwards to Dunedin. From Dunedin, we continued along the eastern coastline of the South Island and passed through the Moeraki Boulders and Oamaru. Then from Oamaru, we continued along the eastern coastline and traveled a further 72Km until a road junction. At the T-Junction, we turned left (west) to Pareora River Road which eventually led us to our next destination - Lake Tekapo, After Lake Tekapo, we drove northeast to Christchurch. 

After spending 2 nights in Christchurch, we dropped our car at Christchurch Airport and flew back to Auckland. Upon exiting the Auckland Airport, we picked up our third and final car. We spent our last 3 days in NZ in Auckland and finally left NZ for Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

The trip may look grueling but in fact it was a very relaxing one. On the average, we drove about 185Km a day with the longest of 465Km on just one day on 22 February mainly because of a detour to see Arthur's Pass.

Touring NZ during Summer has the added benefit of having a much longer day time - one can enjoy the sunlight literally for 13 hours daily from 7am to 8pm. Hence, we could drive around to explore for at least 4 hours to see many places after checking into the hotel at around 3pm before nightfall.

We discover there are many ways to tour and explore NZ - Guided tours in air-conditioned buses, train, caravans, motorbikes, cycling, hitch hiking and even on foot. Driving is to us the best option. It allows a lot of flexibility and changes along the way. We discovered many interesting places and made instant detours simply because of signboards we saw along the ways.

In fact, after numerous driving tours that we had, we are less and less inclined to follow guided tours. However, we understand that driving on our own is not something that we can do in many parts of the world. There are places where it may not be safe to drive either because the laws may be lax or the traffic system is simply too chaotic to be safe to drive.

But for our driving tour in NZ, I dare say that our decision to drive on our own in a single car with just two senior citizens throughout such long journey is an achievement few dare to attempt!

Rest assured, this would not be our last driving tour!

Grandparents

Now that my university classmates are all in their sixties and have attained grandparents status, they do occasionally share thoughts and little stories about being grandparents. I find some of them amazingly true now that we are in that category. 

Some of the short write-ups by a class of 8-year old:

• When they read to us, they don't skip. They don't mind if we ask for the same  story over again.
• Everybody should try to have a grandmother, especially if you don't have television because they are the only grownups who like to spend time with us.
• They don't say, "Hurry up."
• Usually are fat but not so fat to tie your shoes.
• They know we should have snack time before bed time, and they say prayers with us and kiss us even when we've acted bad.

A 6-year old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh", he said, "She lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

 

Remembering Old Days in WA

I finally managed to pay a visit to the home of my ex-Art teacher, Mr. Liew Fui En who now resides in Willetton, Perth.

I vaguely remember him teaching Art during my Bridge Class year in Lok Yuk in 1964. Frankly, I am no artist and Art was never my cup of tea. I cannot recall any art lesson I had from Mr. Liew nor any fond memory of him being the art teacher. There is however one incident that permanently inked into my brain. I used to sit at the last row in Bridge Class. In one of the art class lessons, I was talking to my neighboring classmate without paying attention to the teacher when suddenly I felt a thing struck my forehead. It was a chalk duster thrown by the art teacher toward my direction. Fortunately, no harm done. If it happened today, he would probably have been hauled up for questioning for a dangerous act against a student. But in those days, teachers could practically do anything to their students.

We had a great chat talking about what he has been through from being a teacher, then a manager of a finance company, then a manager of a company selling Mercedes-Benz and finally a boss of  his own company selling cars. He was so keen in chatting that he initiated a second meeting, this time for coffee in Southland Shopping Centre.

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For ex-Consulting Engineer, Lau HW, his enthusiasm to meet and talk has not diminished since we last met in September 2010 (Read here). Looking around his house's compound, it is obvious he has given up practicing engineering and devoted much of his time to gardening.

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The Goh's are new arrivals who have just left Singapore and settled down in Perth. They are still unsettled because the house they bought has yet to be handed over to them. Like Lau, they are equally keen to grab any opportunity to meet up with old friends from Malaysia.

Eating fish head mee soup in an ex-Malaysian operated food outlet is probably the most appropriate place  to reminisce old time in Malaysia and Singapore and to talk about coming days in Perth.

Australia Day 2016

The last time we were at Langley Park to celebrate Australia Day was in early 2011 shortly after Nathan's birth (Read here).

Nathan is now five and his sister Gracie is two and a half. To us, time truly moves at lightning speed!

Wedding at Lamont, Perth CBD

One of the reasons we decided to spend two weeks in Perth was to attend the wedding of my niece, Yvonne.

The wedding preparation started the night before with the hair combing ceremony for the bride, a tradition not practiced by my side of the family. This tradition was first introduced to me in 2007 during Eva's wedding (Read here).

Of course, tea ceremony is now standard practice adopted by all who profess to be Chinese. It is a good time for the couple to get to know the rest of the larger family and to collect some angpow!

Hair combing ceremony

Immediately after the short ceremony was over in Lamont, the scramble for ice lolly turned out to be great fun for kids and adults.

Patiently waiting to collect ice lolly

Getting ready for the wedding banquet

York, Western Australia

In our recent trip to Perth, we were fortunate to have a car at our disposal. With the car available for our driving pleasure and a GPS in hand, I just could not resist to explore some nearby towns not far from Perth city.

When I googled for possible sites which are within 100Km from Perth city, the name, York appeared. Further searches indicated that it is a very old town as far as WA is concerned. It was first settled in 1831.

York is recognized as the oldest inland town in WA. Many of the old buildings are now listed as heritage buildings dating back from 1850s to 1860s  reckoned as the Gold Rush Period.

With a few hours in York, we managed to see a few things: the Town Hall and the little Museum inside, St, Patrick Roman Catholic Church, the Suspension Bridge across Avon River, the Holy Trinity Anglican Church immediately after crossing the suspension bridge, the Motor Museum and the Sock Factory.

While these structures are nothing compared to those in UK, the efforts and contributions put in by convicts sent to York in the 80s to design and build some of these remarkable buildings are still commendable!

Town Hall

Town Hall and Museum

St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church

Holy Trinity Anglican Church

Suspension Bridge across Avon River

Some of the antic cars on display in York Motor Museum

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For our lunch, we had earlier chose Carriage Diner, mainly because of what we saw in the Tourists' Brochure - outdoor setting overlooking Avon River. However, by the time we walked to the place, we decided against eating there because of the lack of roof covering to shade off the strong sunlight. Finally, we opted for the Jules Shoppe.

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