Day 1 & 2 – Penang – KL – Gold Coast – Auckland
After some time of working, annual family trip has become part of our yearly activities. This trip has been planned since a year ago. All the information were gathered puzzle by puzzle, requested for any information from anyone who has been to New Zealand. Due to the long traveling journey to cover both north and south island, we have decided to travel around North Island only and gave up South Island. The extensive of traveling might not suitable for my kids and ended up they enjoy nothing. Kids will not enjoy watching scenery but they enjoy playing at the playground or experience new creature. Immediately I saw the promotion price from the AirAsia.com, without consider much I had just confirmed 4 to and back New Zealand air tickets. My children have been counting months and days to go to New Zealand.
On 30 August 2017, we packed our bags waiting UBER for the pickup. With just only RM 6.20 we reached Penang International Airport. Enjoy our tea break with simple ice-cream and mocha at McDonalds before entering into the boarding room. Kids have already impatient with the flight delay and waiting to take off.
Waiting at McD
Flight delay, I just can't wait to be in the flight.
The moment has come, time to board the plane. This was only from PIA to KLIA2; long journey of flight yet to come. Enjoying the dinner at the simple food court at KLIA 2 by watching the flight and KLIA express moving around could be something unusual for the kids. This environment gave them a chance to see the flight and train at the near distance. Not everyone could have this opportunity to go to airport every year. I love seeing flights since I was young, until today, I do love to board the plane. Let’s have a wefie before taking off. It will be hard to request for kids to have a proper posing for family photograph, therefore we decided to be creative in taking family photos and that allowed the kids to enjoy taking family photo together with us. With this condition, sometimes you will accidentally capture something nice in moment. This pattern has been carried out throughout the journey in New Zealand and the results were awesome.
One of the ideas to let them have fun and not bordering us much was to pack their clothes into the hand carry luggage and allowed them to push around. They enjoy playing with it. Forget about Trunky idea.
The important of taking family photo was the happy moment together, why should we take it seriously?
Flight landed at Gold Coast International Airport for transit.
Flight departed on time at KLIA 2 to Gold Coast, an hour break in between for flight transit before continue departing to Auckland, New Zealand. Flight after flight and finally it ends at 1630 NZ time zone. Rent a Hyundai i30 from SNAP and we were on our way to our first destination of Auckland night market at HENDERSON. Ooh, it’s more like an Asian Night Market. Most of the stalls were own by the Asian, i.e: Hong Kies, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Bangladeshi, Korean, etc. All kinds of Asian food were available. Before the end of the day, we were heading to Countdown for groceries and the food court near to HENDERSON NIGHT MARKET. All cooked foods were selling at 80% after 8pm in New Zealand.
Arrived Auckland International Airport, waiting for Orange free shuttle to SNAP Rental
Henderson Night Market (Asia Night Market)
"Japanese Satay"
Renting a unit from the Airbnb could be a good idea. With an affordable price, friendly host and clean environment, we could make ourselves at home in New Zealand. The host, Ray was a very friendly person and his house was fully equipped with simple facilities allowed us to have a warm and comfort home for 2 days, as well as preparing nice food. My kids enjoyed the cartoon, my wife enjoyed the warm atmosphere and I enjoyed the kitchen and sofa.
Surrounding of Manukau AIRBNB house
My rented car Hyundai i30
Beautiful small house that we were staying for the 2 nights. Special thanks to Ray for the arrangement.
Beautiful view from my door.
Beautiful coffee table and nice environment for coffee.
Room to room
Hall, kitchen and dinning table, small but comfort and warm
Making breakfast for the family
Maggi mee nia lah!
Day 3 – Auckland
We enjoyed our breakfast and importantly my hot coffee at the cool weather in the early morning before we took off for the first destination of the day, Auckland Fish Market. I love market, I love fresh seafood; unfortunately I can’t love the price of seafood sold in Auckland Fish Market. Even though New Zealand is surrounded by the sea but the price to pay was much higher than I can imagine. Ended up we were having our lunch at SIXTEEN TUN NEW ZEALAND FREE HOUSE near to the market. The food was delicious, it worth a try.
Quality time and happy moment with family at Auckland Fish Market
SIXTEEN TUN, nice food, warm environment. Price wise, it was at the high side.
It was very unfortunate that AUCKLAND WHALE & DOLPHIN SAFARI whale watching program has to cancel due to the vessel was under major maintenance, but they had done a full refund. We have missed the chance; hopefully we will have the next chance to see the whale on our next come back. It is common to see huge yacht harbour in Auckland, but it is unusual for us from Malaysia. Only the richy rich are able to own a yacht, therefore this nice view of scenery has caught our attention to have a few shots before proceeding to the next destination.
Auckland harbour
Yacht harbour
Sadly, I have not been to KL Tower in our own country but I have reached the AUCKLAND SKY TOWER. This tower gave you an opportunity to have a sky walk outside of the window. Guest will fully dress up with safety equipment. There was also sky jump activity available, you can always train your brave level from the sky jump. Unfortunately these activities were under maintenance when we were there. The panoramic view was magnificent. After tired of walking, a cup of coffee, a cup of hot chocolate added with a slice of chocolate brownie at the SKY CAFE with the breath taking panoramic view with my family took me to the highest level of enjoyment. Remember to scan your parking ticket before paying your ticket at the ticketing machine to reduce your parking fee to minimum.
The SKY TOWER
The harbour view from Sky Tower
Love this photo so much, photo credit to my beloved wife
38cm thick glass
Yes, we are going to sky cafe
Best Chocolate Brownie ever
An unforgettable place to enjoy coffee, hot chocolate and cake.
Before the end of the day, we visited Mt Eden. Mt Eden is a dead volcano. According to the GPS; we parked our car at the nearby housing area and have to walk all the way up to the tip of the mountain. It was a short mountain hiking. Fortunate that all my family members were well trained for mountain climbing. After 30 minutes of hiking, finally we reached the tip of the Mt Eden. From there, I was able to view the entire Auckland city. As the sky was getting dark, we have to shorten our tour. We took a couple of family photos and enjoyed the city light before the sky getting dark. With children around, we have to shorten the photo taking time and payed more attention to them. The sky was getting dark, the trek visibility was getting dark, we left with no choice but using our cell phone torch to light up the trek and slowly hike back to our rented car. We drove off from there and went home and call it a day.
Hiking the trail to Mt Eden
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| Family photo with the naughty boys |
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| Night scene of Sky Tower from Mt Eden |
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| Hiking in the dark with cell phone torch |
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| Dinner: New Zealand Seafood Spaghetti. (End up lao sai the next day. Haha!) |
Day 4 – Auckland – Waikato
The last day staying at this warm and comfort home; prepared breakfast and lunch in the lunch box, packing and checked out with full of memories.
Today was schedule to visit VILLA MARIA WINERY. Villa Maria Winery visitor
centre was nicely architecture with beautiful restaurant at the entrance and it was
very presentable. It gave the feeling of a beautiful restaurant in the winery
museum. The host was a French and migrated to New Zealand with his talent to
produce quality wine. The factory tour allowed us to photograph the winery
process as well as explaining the functionality of the machine via video. At the
end of the wine tour, we were given the chance to taste 6 bottles of different
wines. The tour guide who was very experience in wine tasting, explained the fine
processes of each different wine taste.
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| Beauty by its greenery of Villa Maria Winery |
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Enjoy the cool and fresh air in New Zealand
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| Yes, we were excited to see the winery |
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| Entrance to the Villa Maria Winery. Looks empty but well organize and clean |
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| Our French tour guide, migrated to New Zealand. Specialize in wine production. Only NZD 5 per head for the tour |
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| Hardly to see any head inside here, there were only 3 workers at this wine bottling section. |
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| Professional transparent wine drinker |
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| NZD 5 for 6 types of wine tasting |
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| I am angry with you for ignoring my hungry stomach |
Sorry my dear
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| A little dizzy |
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| Family photo with the grape plantation |
Never forget to take pictures for memories. It was coming to
spring and the grape plantation was beginning soon. We all missed the experience;
however it was fun to be with them. Returned the car and pickup our long wait
Caravan from APOLLO office. Without wasting time, we were on our rides to
Waikato. Throughout the journey we enjoyed the greenery view of New Zealand. Make
sure you get your grocery done when you get your caravan. Without resourceful
you may ended up like us. We miss the Countdown supermarket and we were left with
limited food. We were expecting to have grocery shop surrounding but ended up camping at
MOANAROA RESERVE self-contained campsite full with nature, not even a street
light. Ensured kids to have a proper meal (instant noodle) and we? Left with bread
and potato chips. Cooling weather allow us to be dirty, as dirty as bath every
fortnight.
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| Only Maggi Mee for both of them |
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| Preparing Kiwi |
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| He just can't wait to sleep on double deck |
Kiwi and Egg
Day 5 – Waikato – Rotorua
I was an early bird guy; I woke up earlier than my family
members. Boiled the water, prepared the breakfast and went out for a walk,
captured the morning fresh air before they all woke up. Wow, the view was
beautiful. The greenery of the trees and grass gave us much relaxing eye instead
of all the man made jungle. Cooling weather made you feel even more relaxing when
walking around. Breakfast was done, changed and we were on our way to HOBBITON,
HAMILTON MATAMATA. The tour starts on time and it was entertaining throughout
the tour. The tour introduction started with a video, introducing the concept
and idea to build the Hobbiton village. The host guide and lead us to walk
through the village. She explained the movie scene captured and also the processes of
making the village. It was inspiring, especially for the photographers to go into the fairy tale concept shooting.
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| Panoramic view of Moanaroa Reserve |
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| Good morning! |
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| Here we go, Hobbiton |
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| Chong Hee and the village |
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| Never forget your family photos with the naughty boys |
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| Looks real, seems sweet, please leave it alone |
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| Love this family photo so much... Thanks to the photographer |
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| Always love this picture. I am always back you up and captured your sweet moment in life |
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| You all are my everything |
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| Bersih in New Zealand |
Finally, we managed to catch the nearest Countdown for
grocery. The short grocery trip cost us about NZD 100 for 5 days raw material
and ingredient. Immediately we cooked our lunch in the caravan. That was the
advantage of having a caravan in New Zealand. You can cook anywhere as long as
it is convenient.
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| Only simple lunch, it can satisfy all of us |
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| This was the meal that I had had when I was in Austria back in few years. I had this dish for dinner everyday for a month. |
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| Now I shared it with my family members, taste good, simple and healthy |
ROTORUA, here we go! After late lunch, we went all the way
to Rotorua, FAMILY HOLIDAY PARK. Never miss the milk product in New Zealand!
Try it and you will not regret it. A New Zealand must try milk product: NEW
ZEALAND YOGURT and HOKEY POKEY ICE CREAM. 2 litre of ice cream was never enough
for 4 of us. We regretted that we had it too little. Make sure to buy more when
visiting New Zealand South Island next time. Family Holiday Park was equipped
with basic need, power charger, toilet, dumpsite, kitchen and playground. For
all campsites in New Zealand, check in time is 12noon and check out time is
10am. Although the wi-fi is given to you for 24 hours but the checkout time is
10am. I was chase out by the owner on the next day :P. Family Holiday Park was
located besides the Rotorua lake. Just take a short walking distance after the
dinner, the view of lake can just amazed me. With the power charger, we were
having a good night sleep with heater. The 240V power supply can only be used
when the power charger was plug into the caravan.
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| Family Holiday Park at Rotorua |
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| The playground at the caravan park |
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| A view of our caravan at our caravan park in the evening |
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| Sunset at Rotorua |
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| Adik-beradik |
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| Our bed after lowed down |
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| Preparing dinner, while kids enjoying The Cars. The nice part of Caravan is that your children are between your reach when you are cooking. Therefore we always together, very near and good family bonding whenever we are in the caravan. Actually you only need a home this big to close to each other. |
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| Hokey Pokey ice cream, finish in 3 days |
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| Heater fan to keep warm and make your family warmer together |
Day 6 – Rotorua
This campsite was very much recommended, as the campsite has
the lowest price among the campsite that I have been to and it located at the
strategic location. The simple life of New Zealander keeps everything simple
and reducing nature damage preserves the beautiful scenery. Agrodome, Rainbow
Spring Nature Park, Maori Village and groceries shops were within 20 minutes’
drive. With the pre-book ticket online, we have entered into the AGRODOME shows starts on time for the goat performance. The host was friendly and entertaining. The
animals were well trained for the show. Other than sheep, they were ducks, dogs
and cows. My kids enjoyed and love it so much. At the end of the show, we were
allow to touch and feed the sheep and dogs.
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| They seems to be more interested with the ducks |
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| Sample of Sheep wools |
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| Finally they have the chance to see this tractor that widely use at huge farm |
This is an unusual scene that we can enjoy the lake view
while cooking our lunch. A short walk by the lake, allowed my kids to explore
the beauty of nature by the lake. Swans and ducks were seen swimming by the
lake side and they were not afraid of human. A short walk by the lake could
kept them smiling. Since the life of New Zealander is simple, we also kept our
lunch simple and allow use to enjoy the scenery. Simple oriental home cook
lunch could satisfy us and we continued our next destination to RAINBOW SPRING
NATURE PARK.
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| Duck duck |
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| Keep it simple and nice |
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| Recommended yogurt, product of New Zealand |
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| Picture tells everything |
The day pass ticket allows you to go in and out of the park
throughout the day. It explains the life of New Zealand fresh water fish, Rainbow
Trout. This fish looks similar with Salmon but it lives in the crystal clear
water. This place also explains some unique species of bird that can mostly
found in New Zealand. It is very exposure to us. From there, we also learned
that whey Manuka Honey can only be found in New Zealand. I was the plant name
Manuka and it can only be found most in New Zealand, just like Kiwi fruit. Bee
extract the honey from the Manuka flower and it becomes Manuka Honey that
selling over NZD 100 (depends on its concentricity). One of the greatest funs
in New Zealand is the playground. Their playgrounds are huge, well maintain and
adventurous. Rainbow Spring Nature Park has a playground in between. Not only
the kids, the adults also wish to play at this playground, it was fun and
adventurous. From this trip, we also learned that Kiwi bird is also a
protective animal in New Zealand. It is like the Panda in China. Kiwi bird only
active at night and sleeps in the day, therefore the visiting centre is covered
up, must be silent and it is dark all day. This could test our patient in
searching for the bird.
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| While waiting, lets have some fun |
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| Very adventurous playground |
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| I tell you ah, eat one by one ok? |
The sky was getting dark and we have to leave the Nature
Park to search for place to park our caravan for overnight. We have not made
any reservation at any campsite and we have to look out for free campsite to
park and overnight. Thanks to CamperMate apps that bring us to the correct
destination for overnight. The date was correctly chosen, as end of spring is
not a favourite season for holiday, therefore most of the campsite still have
available slot. We parked at ROTORUA CAMPSITE, public campsite has not equip
with facility but only allows you to park your caravan for overnight. Paid spa
park and lake garden are around the corner as well. Due to the tight schedule,
we have not enough time to walk around the surrounding to explore more.
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| Chef for the night |
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| Sweet Kiwi |
Day 7 – Rotorua – Tai-O-Tapo - Wairakei
It was quite dark in the night; we were not managed to look
around. Although the campsite is at the middle of the township of Rotorua, but
the view was beautiful. My son has begun to learn to enjoy the beautiful
scenery of New Zealand. The time can’t wait for us to enjoy the view at all
time; we have to leave for the next program: WHAKAREWAREWA – LIVING MAORI
VILLAGE. Instead of a Maori museum, this is one of the places that Maori living
in it. Tour guide brought guide location by location were well explained. The
live experience and the feel of the atmosphere were the feel that could not be
recorded via the video or photograph. The Maori made full use of the natural
resources for living. They bath in the hot spring, they cook in the crystal
clear hot spring, make use of the hot spring steam to cook their food and make
use of the rich soil to plant their vegetables. Traditional Maori food tasting
was available as well. We had tried it and I love it. The tour package also
includes the traditional Maori song and dance. After the tour, we took an hour
to walk around the uncovered hot spring as well as observing the geyser where
the underground hot spring will pump out from the ground hourly. The walking
journey had given us the golden opportunity to meet a couple of European that
can speak very fluent mandarin, their pronunciation is much better than mine!
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| Good morning from Rotorua |
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| Lake view, Dad, I saw duck duck! |
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| Authorized Caravan free campsite |
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| Cool weather, small home, but warm at all time. |
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| Healthy breakfast |
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| Whakarewarewa - Living Maori Village |
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| Higher up the ground for plantation. It is well fertilized soil. Ground is hot at all time. |
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| Traditional way of cooking that will not overcook the dish |
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| Maori style of sweet corn cooking. Crystal clear hot spring. |
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| Natural spring water bath tub, different concentration of minerals gives different color of water. |
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| Geyser |
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| How long can I still carry him in this way? Wish I can have more time with them before they grow up. Love my kids. |
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| Maori traditional dance |
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| Guys always shows their tongue |
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| Maori traditional food cook from the hot spring and steam |
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| Did all of us looks happy? I love it! |
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| The Ang mo that spoke better fluent Mandarin than me. |
We took 10-minute drive to Rotorua lakeside and begun our
lunch preparation. I brought the children to the playground while my wife was
preparing the lunch. This is the biggest public playground I ever seen.
Children enjoy running around and never the less, I joined them for the fun. New
Zealand is really full of adventure, no matter for children or adults.
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| Crystal clear water and you can see the aeroplane is at the left corner |
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| Chong Hee favourite sports, chase the bird |
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| The extreme huge playground |
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| Eat more vege, good for health |
Immediately after the lunch we have left for Wai-O-Tapo
campsite. The sky has gone dark when we reached the planned campsite but it was
unfortunate that the planned campsite has no dumpsite for us to clear the grey
and black water, we have to skip the Wai-O-Tapo destination and continued our
journey to WAIRAKEI for other campsite with dumpsite facility. All the
facilities information are available at CamperMate apps, by spending some time
to study the apps your trip should be a well planned trip. Always has some
snack in the car when you travel, in case of emergency you can have some snack
to keep you away from hunger. By the time we reached ALL SEASONS KIWI HOLIDAY
PARK was 7pm, luckily we still manage to secure a space.
Day 8 Wairakei – Waitomo
Planned to go for THERMAL SPA PARK, which is a free entrance
to the thermal spa river but unfortunately the weather does not permit us. The
rain poured and wet the ground. I have to cancel the hot water river and the
bunchy jump activities, proceed to the next destination, Huka Fall. There is a
narrow stream allow the water to flow from upstream to downstream. With the
huge volume of water flows in the narrow stream of rocks it became waterfall
and they name it Huka Fall. Most of the name given where in Maori language. We
were trying to spend more time to capture more photos on this beautiful
location; unfortunately the rain started to pour in a sudden after we took a
few wefie pictures. Covered my camera, my children and we were running fast
towards the caravan.
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| The thermal spa that has to keep for some other time. |
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| Huka fall family photo |
The caravan saves our day. We can’t go anywhere with this
heavy rain fall; therefore we cooked and had had our lunch during the chilling
temperature. Simple lunch with a cup of cappuccino, enjoy the view throughout
the window is like a multimillionaire enjoying the view from the holiday villa
with a cup of cappuccino. As time is shot, we have to depart to WAITOMO
GLOWWORM CAVES.
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| A cup of cappuccino before wheels up |
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| Papa, TRAIN. Nice work son. you did it great. |
It took us more than 2 hours to reach the destination, it
was raining and the road is slippery; some of the villages were flooded. We
have to be extra careful on the road and thankfully we reached the destination
safely and in time for the last cave tour. Due to the high raining season, part
of the glow worm caves was flooded and has to be closed. Entrance tickets were
reduced to 50% of its original priced. The tour guide is a Maori; he is
friendly, entertaining and a good singer too. The cave is also a lime stone
cave. The tour was welly guided and well explained. Too bad, the cave with most
glow worm was flooded and we only able to view from the entrance to the cave
but not on the boat to enjoy the light of the glow worm. And he each person
only have 10 second to view the glow worm. The tour guide showed us the path to
the cave entrance with his torch, the moment he shut off his torch, and it is
like another world has appeared in front of us. Wow!!! It was amazingly
beautiful; it is like a galaxy with billions of blue star. The lighting just
blows us away. I would say the time for
view is too short. It will be great to have added another 10 second but we have
to allow other people to have the same chance to have the view.
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| Optimus Prime made its depart to New Zealand |
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| Waitomo Glow worms cave. In time to catch the last trip |
Right after the caves visit, new question arose!!! “Where
should we overnight?” My wife asked. “I don’t know leh!” I answered. Google map
does not shown the location of my homework back then. CamperMate
made our day, it shows the nearest free campsite, the ROSELANDS free campsite.
The Google map only shown the route near to the Roseland but there was no
direct route to the destination. Luckily my wife saw the Roseland signboard
direction. Lesson: Try to plan your trip before the sky is dark, the notice
board can be noticeable. Country side has less street lamp to brighten your
route.
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| Roselands Free Campsite |
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| Dancing pork knuckles, as we cook, fat keep "pik pik piak piak" and flying up from the pan |
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| Beautiful chef |
Day 9 Waitomo – Hot Water Beach
The view of the surrounding always surprised us on the next day we woke up from the caravan. We were actually parked at middle of the mountain where we can have a view on the farm surrounding us. It was exactly like the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald had a farm, i-ya-i-ya-yo”. Kids enjoyed the farm visit, chasing the chicken, adults can’t stop taking pictures. Allow the children to be freed, allow the children to run around, enjoy the environment and brought back lots of memories. Without wasting much time, we were on our way to HOT WATER BEACH.
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| Good morning from Roselands, I love the caravan on the most left. |
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| Kids exploring around |
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| Hor-hee-hor-hee, donkey |
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| The pigs are on the left |
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| Farm view |
The journey took us about 3.5 hours to reach the destination. It was far, kids fell into sleep, shouting of hunger, singing, tidbits served and drawing while driving. Too bad, the TV was away behind the seat and they were not able to see the TV. I felt blessed that they were obedient and very cooperative throughout the journey. We stop by the road side, quickly had our lunch and continue our journey to the Hot Water Beach before the sky turn dark or raining. By 3.30pm, we have reached the HOT WATER BEACH TOP 10 HOLIDAY PARK.
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| Field full with cows, hardly seen in Malaysia |
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| This is wall paper from Windows. No lah... was captured by my wife on our way to Hot Water Beach |
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| Poor baby, but they were very good and they do what they promise to us. Our bags were experiencing Tsunami in the caravan. |
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| Spaghetti by the road side |
The owner told us that the beach time will over in 30 minutes time due to the high tight. I had never tough of this before! The Hot Water Beach can only be played during low tight. As the holiday park owner said in 30 minutes time, the sea water will be coming to high tight. I presumed that after high tight begin, we still have about 30 minutes more before the sea water cover the hot beach area. Quickly we I drove them to the beach area, parked our vehicle and ran to the hot beach area. We manage to make it. We saw a number of foreigners dipped themselves into the pool of hot water. It is an unusual phenomenal for us to experience the hot water came out of the wet sand. Between the 2 rocks, we dig the deep into the wet sand; hot spring water will appear from the ground. I estimated that the hot water is about 70 to 85 degree Celsius. It was too hot for us to dip into it. I have only tried with my leg dip into the hot sand for maximum of 1 minute. I believed my leg will become German pork knuckle if I deep into it for 30 minutes. However, there were people able to have spring bath there. 40 minutes later, we have to leave the place as the cold sea water is taking place. We ran to the public toilet for a shower to clean up before heading into the caravan. With the facility in the caravan, we were able to clean up 95% and drove all the way to the holiday park.
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| View of Hot Water Beach. Beautiful green and blue sea |
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| Looks weird with this outfit, jacket and swim trunk. It was cool at outside, but hot on my feet |
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| Although the weather is cool, but the hot spring is just too hot for me to dip in. |
We parked the caravan at the designated location and we began to explore around the holiday park. Other than the children’s playground, there was a bouncing pillow which caught our attention. It was a big pillow act like a spring board. All of us took this opportunity to jump on the giant bouncing pillow.
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| NZD 80 cabin with 2 berth. |
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| Giant bouncing pillow that makes me feel like jumping none stop. |
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| Giant Chess |
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| Fully equip kitchen, use it, clean it and keep it. |
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| Dinning area with fire place |
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| Proudly, capture by my son |
Soon we are going to miss this beautiful island, the New Zealand North Island. It was wonderful family time, relaxing and full of adventure. We took this opportunity to take some beautiful pictures of the surrounding and took as much picture as possible.
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| Night scene of Caravan. 30 sec picture |
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| Stars view from New Zealand. Last night in New Zealand, don't feel like going to let go the beautiful New Zealand |
Day 10 Hot Water Beach – Auckland
Last day in New Zealand, as usual woke up in the early morning and manage to go for morning bath after breakfast was prepared. Without wasting time, we discharged all the wastes; fill up the fresh water and we were on our way to the final destination, THE CATHEDRAL COVE.
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| Cheeky smile from the window while I was filling the fresh water |
The holiday park receptionist told us that it takes 20 ~ 30 minutes walking distance, but it took us an hour to walk to the destination. Going to the Cathedral Cove path is a downstream path, I was worried about walking back, and it is an upstream path! Care less; let us enjoy the view first. It was worthwhile to take this decision to walk to the destination. The cove was gorgeous! You can view the cove across the cave; it was like the screen saver from the Windows 10. Blue sky and crystal clear blue seawater combine together with the fair white cove sitting at the middle of the sea.
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| On our way to Cathedral Cove, heard that the oyster sold at lower price here, but we just miss it. |
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| Looks like a lion sleeping on the sea |
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| A good spot for scenery view; too bad we do not have the luxury time. |
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| Lucky I still manage to carried him to the destination. Love carrying them, its tough, its sweet, its wonderful and its memorable |
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| What is scenery to them? I rather play my sand |
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| After shot, its time to pack and go |
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| Always hold your hand and round the world |
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| We are in the team, we go together |
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| We have arrived |
Approximately 11am, we have to pack our gears and rushing back to the caravan. I carried my son all the way uphill to the caravan (lucky I have done my cycling often). Have a drink and we were rushing all the way to Auckland to return the caravan before 1530. Although google map has estimated 2 hours for the journey but end up we took 4.5 hrs to arrive the destination. Importantly to fill up your gasoline and discharge all wastes before returning the caravan. With the last van, we were on our ride to Auckland International Airport. Due to last minute rush, we have to repack all our bags in the airport before we check-in. It is advisable to have a portable weighting scale with you at all time to make sure all your bags are within the permissible weight. Have a quick late lunch, not to forget to purchase small souvenir before board the plane. Bye bye to this beautiful New Zealand.
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| Enjoy the ride before reaching the Airport and head back home |
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| New Zealand McD collection |
Trip summary with Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/241714281
