New Zealand

Hard to believe it's been three months since we went to New Zealand! Here is is a quick trip recap and some of our favorite pictures.

After an unfortunate 2-day-delay in Kuala Lumpur we got to enjoy 7 days in the south island of New Zealand. Overall the trip was great, we drove over 1800 kms and Emily did incredibly well.

Kuala Lumpur delay
We have learned some hard lessons about budget airlines; the last one being they don't do baggage handling like regular airlines do. When we made it to Kuala Lumpur for the layover to get to Christchurch we had just over 1 hour to get our bags, re-check them, and go through security. We got to the counter 55 mins before our flight and they wouldn't let us in; claiming we needed to be there an hour before our flight so it was already too late. After arguing with them for a bit and realizing there was NOTHING we could do we started to look at our options. We could either change to fly two days after or we could book a brand new ticket from a different airline. Despite our frustration with Air Asia we were committed and decided to stick with it. I was really impressed with how well we both handled the news so after our flight was booked we sat down and started looking for hotels in downtown KL to sped the two upcoming nights.


Two days in KL
What started as a horrible day ended up being a great success. Our hotel was nice and in a good location; we spent the day walking around town and taking pictures of the pretty buildings. We had a wounderful dinner at Bija, Malay restaurant, and ended up eating a little too much. The food and the experience was amazing. Arves and I had time to reconnect while Emily watched videos. We all had a great time.
Saturday started with  delicious breakfast at the NZ Garden Cafe. I love roti! Breakfast ended a bit abruptly since there was a  riot going on in town about elections. There were a lot of people and a TON of police and things got heated enought at some point that the restaurant started setting up a barricade. I freaked out a bit considering I was 5.5 months pregnant and we had Emily with us. Luckily we headed back to the hotel without  major excitement.
We spent the rest of the day at the zoo and had a great time running around. The animal selection wasn't that good but we got to see some Monkeys and Elephants which were Emily's favorites.
Headed home for a nap and then went for lunch/dinner at the Spice of India. Do not recommend it :)


New Zealand
We got to the airport with plenty of time and everything went well. Emily did great on the 10 hour flight!
When we arrived at New Zealand the people at the airport were great and everyone we ran into kept checking and making sure we were doing okay or where we needed to wait for our shuttle to get our car.
Town wasn't too far and before we knew it we arrived at our hotel, or so we thought. We had directions of where the key to our room would be hidden and Arves looked for about 10 mins unseccessfully. I then tried to find this hidden box without any success. We gave up and decide that even thought it was midnight we had to wake up the owner since we had no way to get into our room for the night. After a few knocks this old lady came down pretty frustrated and pointing at her watch. We explained that we were supposed to check in that night and that the directions to get our key didn't work. After talking to her for a bit we come to find our we were at the WRONG hotel. Ours was CentrePoint and this was CityCentre! We apologized and went on our way. It was just a few houses down across the street. Needless to say we felt pretty embarrassed  but  blamed it on how tired we all were. This time we found the key no problem and had a great night sleep.

Day 1 - Christchurch to Franz Joseph

Christchurch is a pretty small city and it reminded us a lot of Logan. We were surprised to find ruins from the earthquake back in 2010. There was a weird feeling around town that people were just waiting for another disaster to strike at any minute.
We had a delicious and expensive breakfast at Vick's Cafe, drove around town, and played at the Botanical Gardens where we found a playground. Emily had a blast.

After playtime we started our long drive to Franz Joseph which was about 7 hours away. The drive was beautiful and very long at times. We got to see sheep by the hills and a lot beautiful mountains. Despite the long day and battles around food Emily did really well.

Tired of the car  we stopped at  Hokitika for dinner at Fat PiPi's Pizza thinking this would help Emily eat a bit, plus this town didn't have very many choices at all.
The lady at the restaurant was surly and said they didn't have any tables but that we could sit on some couches if we wanted. We didn't think much of it and took a seat. Our pizza wasn't very good and Emily didn't want anything to do with it.

We finally made it Franz Joseph and our hotel was spotless and very convenient.

Day 2 - Franz Joseph to Queenstown

We started the day with an amazing hike to Franz Joseph glacier. Emily loves to ride on her backpack and was very happy the whole way. By the time we got to the glacier she was out cold.

Arves and I stopped for pictures and snacks and remembered how much we love being out hiking and enjoying each others company. On the way back Emily woke up and we let her explore a bit and play with rocks. She's going to be such a great little hiker!
After the hike we continued on our way to Queenstown stopping at Lake Matheson for sightseeing and Cook Saddle Cafe and Saloon for dinner. The views from the lake were beautiful and the restaurant was delicious!

The rest of the drive to Queenstown was very long but we finally made it in for a good night sleep.

Day 3 - Queenstown

This was one of our best days in New Zealand. The town is beautiful and worth spending extra time to enjoy it. We finally had time to relax and enjoy our time without driving. We found a great park at Queenstown Gardens which was the highlight of Emily's trip. Having Emily gave us a great perspective, no matter where you are in the world, swing is a swing and kids love them! As long as she had a park to play at she was happy.

We stayed at the Central Ridge Boutique Hotel and it was great. Once again the room was super clean and breakfast was delicious. They even made a special breakfast for Emily since they heard us complain that she had a tough time eating.
We got to ride up the cable car and found a geo-cash that our friends Jack and Diya left for us a few months earlier. So thoughtful and fun.

Day 4 - Queenstown to Te Anau
We took it easy this morning since we only had a short drive to Te Anau. The drive was beautiful and reminded us of Bear Lake area in Utah; quiet little roads crossing through little towns with beautiful sights of mountains and rolling hills filled with sheep. We stayed at the Radfords Lake View Hotel right in front of Lake Te Anau. They were super helpful and the room was very clean and comfortable. They also helped us book our Milford Sound tour for the following day. We got to enjoy a short hike to Frasers Beach starting from Pearl Harbour, Manapouri. This is where a lot of the tours to Doubtful sound start from. We had the beach all to ourselves and we had a great time throwing rocks in the water and playing in the sand.

Day 5 - Milford Sound
The drive up to Milford sound was not too bad although a bit windy. The sights were beautiful and the bus stopped at multiple places for pictures. Once we got to the bay we immediately got on the boat and headed out to the Tasman Sea. The views were amazing and although a bit chilly it was worth being on the top level of the boat. The hikes around these area are multi-day and taking the boat tour really worked out for us giving us a good perspective of what New Zealand had to offer even when traveling with a 1+ year old.
After the tour we got right back on the bus to head back to Te Anau. We wish we would have had time to walk around and enjoy the trails and sights with Emily. If we were to do it again we would take the boat tour but drive ourselves up to Milford Sound instead of taking the bus. After getting back to Te Anau we drove back to Queenstown to spend one last night at our favorite town.

Day 6 - Queenstown to Mount Cook
We enjoyed our morning playing around town and then started our drive up to Mount Cook. Had a nice lunch at Twizel and finished our drive to spend the night at Mount Cook National Park, Hermitage Hotel. We decided to stay here instead of Lake Tekapo since we wanted to do some hikes and enjoy the outdoors a bit. The park was beautiful - full of glacial mountains and lots of hikes. They also have several tours that looked fun for older kids but we couldn't do this time around. We had a nice quiet evening and enjoyed a short hike to Blue Lakes. Unfortunately we couldn't find the pretty lakes due to the time of the year; they were far from blue but the hike was pretty and we enjoyed throwing rocks at the water. Temperature dropped really fast as soon as the sun went down so we got back to our hotel. There is not much to Mount Cook area other than the park, they have several restaurants that are part of the hotel but that's pretty much it.  Arves took advantage of the full moon and went out for some night photography after Emily went to bed and came back extremely excited about hiking the glaciers the next day.

Day 7 - Mount Cook to Christchurch (through Lake Tekapo)
This was our favorite day since we ended up doing multiple hikes. After breakfast we did a short hike to Mueller Glacier which was really pretty and after headed to a longer hike to Tasman glacier. Both were easy hikes with very well marked trails. Emily enjoyed singing songs in her backback and we all had a great time. We finally started to head back to Christchurch, stopping for dinner at a restaurant with views of Lake Tekapo which was beautiful. We finished our drive back to Christchurch just in time to catch our flight back home.

Overall we were surprised of how small most towns were and how empty New Zealand felt. We ran into very little traffic through most of our travels. The biggest town we visited was Queenstown which still has a small town feeling similar to Estes Park. Food prices are very expensive, especially coming from Penang. I was surprised at how clean every hotel we stayed at was. The trip was great and traveling with a toddler has a lot of challenges and requires much better planning but it also makes it so take things easier and enjoy the little things.  We're looking forward to a return trip when Emily and Arvesito are a bit older and can go trekking with us :).

Most of our pictures are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/112374678122907083043/NewZealandSouthIsland2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOKe2YSOqNGFLw&feat=directlink