UniQuE: Our Journey to the East (of Ozzie, NZ...)

Departure DaY & Day 1

We, my bro, three of his frens : Hilly, Will, Yik (Gugu) n Me, left Melbourne around 5PM on 21st of Dec 2006. The day we had waiting for ,eagerly, since we bought the air ticket. Anyway, nothing special on the plane, actually we were bored to death. No entertainment n no food basically on the plane (Jetstar). Can't really complain since it's quite a bargain ticket.

Arrived Christchurch about 12 AM ( 4 hours flight + 2 hours difference ) n wif hungry stomach, we have to wait to settle our "car". The airport was quite disappointing tho, not the building but in terms of no restaurant or even Maccas at all.

After we got our rented car, we went to the closest city so we could settle our hungry stomach. BBQ Pork Fried Rice was wat we had, not in the restaurant, but as takeaway n sadly, ate in a supermarket called "Countdown" (coz it was freezing cold due to raining). We finally settled everything around 3AM n planned to sleep in the car. But guess wat? None of us could sleep. So, ended up driving around look for any accomodation that would let us stay for that nite. 3-4 motels rejected us before finally we found "Sudima" hotel. Check-in then straight away jumped to bed n slept. Too exhausted...

Around 11AM, we were all ready for our first adventure, against the storm in Antartic.

Hahaha. Nah..we were in the Antartic Centre. But the storm was real..sooo freezing cold..Not only the storm that we experienced, we also rode Hagglund, a vehicle for transportation in Antartic. Yes..real vehicle in Antartic. We were shown how normally they pass through a big gap valley, steep valley, "donut", muddy land n around-1-metre-deep pond as well using that vehicle.

The vehicle I mentioned juz now..

Overall, it's a great experience =D.

Next stop? Christchurch city centre. A small city but so well organised. "Neat". Juz have a look at these photos.

After lunch in a nice Korean restaurant, we headed off to Akaroa Harbour. The scenery was so awesome..Look at those green hills, clear water but unfortunately grey sky..

On our way to Akaroa..

Akaroa Harbour..

That was it for the fun paRt in day 1. We went to our accomodation to rest after dat. A nice inn with a kitchen n two bedroom for a good nite sleep. hehehe.

Day 2
We drove to a city called Kaikoura for whale watching. Quite a long drive, about 2-3 hours (or more, cant remember..). Sadly, one person per whale watching would cost so much, so we decided to juz take a few pics in that city n headed off to our next stop, Hanmer Spring, which is well known for its Thermal Springs = Hot spa..

On our way to Kaikoura

Look at those snowy mountains..I wanna go dereee

Unique sea-creature dat we found..

May be it's juz not our day, our target to have a private pool vanished (it was under development). Disappointed.. After hours of driving, we hadnt had anything fun on dat day n it's about 4PM. Finally we made a decision to try the "Quad Bike", another vehicle..er.. juz check it out..(dunno how to describe...again..hehehe). Drove it around bushes wif magnificent scenery around us. One of us even went into bushes. hahaha. Eventhough at the end our thumb was numb, bcoz of pressing the gearing all the time.., it was worthed afterall =D