Conquered Mt Taranaki

I did it. The whole 2548m of Mt Taranaki climbed in 4 hours yesterday. I couldn't believe it. Half-an-hour into the climb I was already knackered and ready to ditch the hike. Somehow I persisted. Maybe because I saw people twice my age trying to climb which spurs me on. Also I spent $55 just to get to the foot of the mountain. Regardless, it wasn't plain sailing. Only half of the trail was formed, the other consisting of gravels and rocks. (see photo below). Those gravels were pretty annoying as they are slippery. Maybe I had improper shoe (my 5 years old Nike Cortez) but for every 2 steps up, I'll slide 1 step down. Very frustrating. And the slope is roughly 45 to 60 degrees. At the crater (Mt Taranaki is a dormant volcano), the temperature dropped dramatically. There was even snow/ice at the center of the crater. The crater lie just below the summit and at the summit, wind was blowing ice so I didn't stay long. 20 minutes most. After all that work, only 20 minutes to revel. And most of it was spent eating lunch. Getting down was also a challenge. Again the gravel proves to be an obstacle since the slipperiness can cause you to slide down uncontrollably. With sharp rocks and few hundred meters of downward slope, I took my time going down. Slow, steady but surely is the way to go. After 3.5 hours, I'm at the foot again. There were roughly 15 people who climbed the mountain that day. 2 needed rescuing. Apparently both had injured their ankle on the way down but fortunately rescue helicopter was there to pick those lucky people up. My shuttle driver said people use to die on this mountain even one of his close friend was killed there 8 years ago. Fortunately, the rescue helicopters had made a difference. According to him, to avoid mishap, always watch weather forecast and be prepared for the worst - carry warm clothing, food & water. Never delve into the mountain in treacherous weather. As you can see, it was generally fine (see bottom photo, foot of Mt Taranaki) & I didn't just go hike up the mountain nilly willy. I've googled about it, made my research and made my prep. Alhamdulillah everything went well. Will I do it again? No. Too much work :D I would rather spend my money on a helicopter ride up there. But I would climb another mountain if given another chance. It wont be long until I wont have time or energy to climb mountains anymore so take the opportunity when it comes.

I return

As requested by my sister, i finally updated this blog. I have been meaning to write something but i had the case of self-induced busy-ness so haven't got the time to get to it. So, whats been happening for the past few weeks? Well, I've finished my psychiatry attachment, 2 weeks of public health, 2 days of Maori Health, 2 weeks of addiction medicine, 1 week of easter holiday and now, im doing intensive care & anaesthesia. I'll talk about school later because writing about Easter holiday is a lot easier on my neurons. I joined my Dunedin mates on a trip to Milford Sound. On the way there, we stopped by a farm for a tour and sheep herding show. Second time I saw this but I was still impressed by how the dogs are so good at their work. It only takes 6 months of training for a dog to herd sheeps properly. This video isn't from the trip I went, but a more impressive herding done in Scotland:

Kuching

Awal bulan Januari lepas, aku akhirnya menjejakkan kaki aku di bumi Malaysia Timur. Sebelum cuti lagi aku dah beli tiket dan merancang untuk bercuti di sana. Tidak semua mengikut perancangan. Orang yang sepatutnya menjadi tuan rumah terpaksa balik ke tempat lain. Walaubagaimanapun, dia dah aturkan orang lain untuk ambil alih. Aku segan sebab tidak berapa kenal orang yang diganti itu. Tetapi tiket dah dibeli dan kos untuk mengubah tarikh tiket untuk pendekkan waktu pelancongan lagi mahal dari bayar sewa rumah tumpangan murah di sana jadi aku pergi juga. Bila sampai disana aku disambut dengan ramahnya oleh tuan rumah baru aku & mereka memang bersemangat nak bawa aku jalan-jalan di bandar Kuching. Layanan memang bagus.

Tempat dipergi: 

1. Kuching Civic Center (gambar atas sekali): Pemandangan 360º bandar Kuching. Percuma untuk masuk.

2. Taman Persahabatan (gambar atas dan bawah): Taman meraikan hubungan diantara Cina Republik dengan bandar Kuching. Cantik dan kemas. Percuma untuk masuk.

3. Pantai Damai (gambar bawah sekali): pantai biasa. Masa aku pergi, musim tengkujuh, jadi laut keruh sikit & bergelora. Aku mandi juga, nasib baik tidak kena sauk.

4. Sarawak Kampung Budaya: rm 60 kot. tak ingat dah harga dia. Dapat menyumpit. Ada macam-macam aktiviti lain tapi masa aku pergi hujan lebat, jadi ada aktiviti dibatalkan.

5. Taman Negara Kubah: gunung untuk dipanjat atau air terjun untuk dimandi. Panjat 500 kaki tetapi kena patah balik sebab hujan lebat. Yuran: rm 5 atau 10, x ingat dah.

6. Pantai Sampan: 2 jam dari kuching. Laut bergelora jadi cuma tengok sahaja.

7. Taman Negara Gunung Gading: terletak di Lundu, 2 jam dari Kuching. Ada bunga rafflesia, air terjun dan gunung. bunga rafflesia x mengembang pada bulan Januari jadi aku x nampak. Menurut pegawai yang jaga tempat itu, bunga rafflesia mengembang awal bulan Mac. Yuran masuk rm5/10, juga x ingat.

8. Semantan: Kampung nelayan. Tidak ada apa-apa menarik. Mungkin makanan laut murah disini.

9. Kampung Bau: Ada 2 gua. Tidak dapat pergi sebab jalan ke gua banjir.

10. Waterfront Kuching: Di persisiran sungai Kucing, di tengah-tengah bandar Kuching. Boleh naik bot untuk pusing-pusing di sungai. Ada orang nak "pow" aku disitu tapi disebabkan aku ditemani orang sarawak, diapun berundur. Dia tanya "ko kacau perempuan kat sini eh?". macam itu lah lebih kurang dia cakap. Aku tak paham sangat pun apa yang dia cakap dengan dialect sarawak yang pekat (dah bukan bahasa melayu -  pendapat aku semata). 

11. Golden triangle: Nama canggih tapi ini sebenarnya patung-patung kucing di tengah-tengah persimpangan jalan berbentuk segitiga berlokasi depan hotel Hilton.   

Arrrghhh susah betul menulis dalam Bahasa Melayu. Bulan Januari bukanlah waktu sesuai untuk melancong di Kuching sebab musim tengkujuh. Masa aku pergi, hujan & banjir paling teruk sejak 40 tahun lalu menimpa Kuching. Memang bukan nasib aku. Banyak perjalanan aku ada sahaja tidak kena. Masa aku pergi umrah masa kecil-kecil dulu pun, aku x dpt nampak kaabah sebab ditutup untuk membuat renovasi. 

Gold Coast

Months ago, my mate suggested we transit at Brisbane on our NZ-MYS-NZ trip. Air Asia X just started flying to Gold Coast (an hour drive away from Brisbane) so cheap flights were available. Apparently JetStar also started flying to KL from there as well, so there was plenty of options there. Having said that, if you dont need to save $$$, dont try these long-haul cheap flights. Seats are smaller than economy class (who would've thought they could make smaller seats) & I got the worst seat - the one smack in the middle where u'll be lucky not elbowing the guy sitting next to you on both sides. Luckily my flight wasn't fully booked & both passengers sandwiching me bolted (I dont think I made them tho, I think...), so I got 3 seats to myself & able to sleep lain down. Anyway, we stayed 3 nights at YHA coolangata backpacker accomodation, which was right next to the Gold Coast airport. Fortunately there is this ruling in Oz where commercial flight landing is banned between midnight & 5/6 am. In a way, the location is good since I used the sound of airplane landing/taking off as an alarm clock & its only 3 minutes walk to the beach (top photo).

What did I do there? Strolled around a bit on the 1st day looking at beaches & the city. Photo: Burleigh Head beach. Next day, we spent the whole day at Dreamworld theme park & on the 3rd day we went to Warner Brothers Movie World (photo below). There's rainforest attraction on the outskirt of the city. I didn't go becuase Oz is notorious for bush fires & just recently upto 60 people died from that in Victoria. Conclusion: Fun place to go if you have the $$$ to enjoy the theme park or is keen on learning/practising surfing. The beach is pretty rough for a swim. The city is also filled with half-naked people strolling around the city. 

As I write this entry, I had this feeling of guilt. Guilty of spending $$$ & time for frivolous enjoyment (theme park rides) & I felt at times how feeble I was in spending my life enjoying these type of things. I know that the $$$ and time should be best spent in more useful manner (dakwah, charity etc) but I also has this urge to have some fun. Finding the balance is something that I've been searching my entire life & I continue to fail. Somebody or a hadith goes by the saying "aim for the afterlife & u will have both of this life & afterlife". I should start taking this advice.   

Perkembangan perjalanan kepulanganku

Daripada berita yang aku baca, nampak gayanya lapangan terbang Suvarnabhumi akan lama dikepong oleh penunjuk perasaan. Jadi aku telefonlah Jetstar dan alhamdulillah aku boleh tukar destinasiku tanpa bayaran tambahan. Aku pilih Singapura kerana tiada penerbangan terus ke Kuala Lumpur. Tetapi itinerari agak memenatkan. Aku bertolak 6 pagi esok dan akan transit di Sydney dan kemudian di Darwin sebelum medarat di Changi pukul 9 malam. Kemudian, aku akan bergegas ke Larkin Johor untuk ambil mana-mana bas ke Shah Alam. Tempahan penginapanku di Bangkok dan juga tiket penerbangan BKK-KL ku telah pun dibatalkan dan akan ditampung kosnya oleh pihak insuran. Tidaklah aku rugi sangat melainkan masa dan perasaan pasrah lambat balik 2 hari. Alhamdulillah. Cuma keretaku rosak, pad brek kena ganti ($230!), yang menjadikan semalam hari gembira aku malap sedikit. Walaubagaimanapun, ramai orang lain di dunia kini sedang menimpa kesusahan yang mengerdilkan kesusahanku:

1. Beribu orang terperangkap di Bangkok kerana pengepongan lapangan terbang.

2. Beratus orang mati atau cedera kerana serangan di Mumbai. 

3. Puluhan hingga ratusan orang dan kapal mereka ditangkap oleh lanun Somali.

4. Rakyat Palestin yang masih ditindas oleh rejim zionis Israel.

5. Rakyat Iraq dan Afghanistan yang masih merana akibat kesan peperangan.  

!@#$%&^*

I eagerly anticipated the day. I cleared my food stock. I packed my stuffs away in boxes. I finally vacuum my room. I read the news. I got this funny feeling that it was not meant to be. I called the airlines, twice. I was told first "no policy have been in place, everything is as is". I was later told "only outgoing flights are cancelled. inward flights remain scheduled". I stayed up. I showered. I woke my co-driver. I drove to the airport. I walked to the counter. 

"Hi, how are you?"

"which way are you heading?"

"Bangkok? hmmm. I think theres changes to that route. It might be cancelled. Go to that counter at the end there, she's the one handling this flight"

"I'm sorry, but all inward and outgoing flights, not just our airline, has been cancelled. It only escalated overnight and now the airport is closed."

5h!t

My trip home to Malaysia has just been delayed for a further 2 days. Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok International Airport was, on 26th November 2008, stormed and seized hold by anti-government protesters and disrupted all its services. Don Mueng airport was also blockaded. At the moment, the current government has declared state of emergency in these two places & will try to clear out the protesters by Saturday, the day my flight is resecheduled. More info:

NZ Herald: Bangkok explodes in violence.

Reuters: Main Bangkok airport to be shut until at least Saturday 

Mt Cook

Nothing much going on here, me with my school work and NZ is pretty much mundane at the moment. But my dear Malaysia, what is happening there? Sodomy allegation on a certain person (again...), road blocks, motion-of-no confidence, retirement plan. Since the recent election result that ended the years of homogeneous power of a certain political party in the Malaysian government, unprecedented events have took place. Given my lack of knowledge on these kind of stuff, I'm just gonna sit on the fence and see how it pans out. I do think the roadblock was an outrageous move and totally upper handed. Some people will point out avoidance of the 13 Mei 1969 tragedy and they might have a point there..Anyway, continuing my winter holiday story: So, after Queenstown, we head on to Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ. We didn't actually hike/drove all the way to the peak, but only stayed overnight at Mt Cook Village that is situated at the foot of the mountain (I guess). YHA hostel was the cheapest accommodation available at the village but it was also the most expensive among the accommodations we stayed throughout our holiday trip (rated at NZD29/night). The village was threadbare as it only had couple of houses there, a resort, a school and no shops whatsoever. At the time of visit, winter hasn't really set in and so, no snow and no skiing and less tourist. It wasn't warm enough to permit tramping as well, so the village was pretty much empty. We only did some walking and enjoy some spectacular scenery, such as the one I captured at the start of this entry. They are glaciers here too but they are mainly for viewing and not as beautiful as Fox or Franz Josef. The road to Mt Village has specatular view as well as evident by the photo below. This is Lake Pukaki.

Queenstown Revisited

Whazzup peeps? I'm here chillin in front of the comp here after that sweet as Teppanyaki dinner. First time tried it and though the food is a tad oily, the cook showmanship and the whole experience was quite good. I've been kept busy this week with exam as I might have alluded before but don't worry, I'm back writing this blog to quench those appetite for another of my entertaining yet meaningless blog entry. :D If you have not scrolled down yet, you should, as I have made some nifty addition to the blog - a FeedJit javascript to keep track of the traffic of this blog. I'm just curious. Anyway, back to my holiday stories and me and my flatmates went to Queenstown after having enough of Wanaka. We took the Crown Range route, a scenic route passing the mountains in between Wanaka and Queenstown:


This road provide access to Cardrona, a ski resort, which I have never been actually. At Queenstown, we stayed two nights to enjoy 'luging', bungiing and jet-boating. There's heaps of things to do here but you sure have to have a bank balance to match. This is not an exhaustive list but other stuffs to do here are paragliding, ski/snowboarding, lake cruise, and skydiving. Here are some panoramic view of Queenstown taken from Queenstown Gondola and Luge Ride:

The lake shown in the photo above is Lake Wakatipu and this is where Lingam went on holiday.

Wanaka Revisited

In a couple of hours, I'm going to try to go to bed and hope I could actually sleep and then wake up for an 8-o'clock start tomorrow. It's a daunting task given I've spent the later part of my holidays being a nocturnal, only sleepin after fajr and waking up just before Asr. This is in contrast to how I spent the early part of the holiday, where I would dose off before 11pm out of sheer tiredness and would then wake up refreshed next morning and not dose off after Fajr. Just digressing here, I've read somewhere that the hadith saying it's makhruh to sleep after Fajr is dhaif. Can anybody verify that fact? However, that early part of holiday was spent traveling, and after conquering the glacier, I went down for a quick visit of Wanaka. Just 4 hours drive from Franz Josef and passing the scenic Lake Hawea, Wanaka is one of the top tourist destination in NZ, mainly for it's winter activity attraction. We went there for sight seeing and only went walking on Mt Iron, a 2-hour walk just on the outskirt of Wanaka. It's more of a pit-stop for us before heading to Queenstown. Winter hasn't really kicked in yet when we enter and so no snow-capped mountains yet. There were lots of fog though. Here are some panoramic photo I've come up with from that walk on Mt Iron:

I haven't really develop my panoramic photo skill yet, hence the narrow slit appearance of these photos. Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I've spent the last few hours of my holiday reading this hilarious website: . As far as I can remember (not that far) I did promote this website a few years ago in my blog. It now certainly has upgraded and contain some new hilarious articles. Should be good comic relief for those who was or is involved in MSA (Muslim Student Association) or anybody for that matter.

West Coast Revisited

A month plus a week on and I am back writing a nonsense entry for this totally random blog of mine. A quick update of what has happen: school --> assignment --> test --> more test --> holiday (yeay) --> NOW: holiday almost ending. Despite the glamour of Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy, I'm not going to delve much into my medical student experience but I just wanted to recount the holiday I've spent. First up, was 'West Coast Revisited'. Perhaps, some of my loyal reader out there remembered my brief mention of my trip to the West Coast last year, so this year I returned. Why? To conquer the glaciers, the Franz Josef Glaciers to be exact. Franz Josef glacier are just one of the several glaciers situated at NZ West Coast (other notable glaciers - Fox Glacier, and Haast Glacier). A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity.[1] What unique about this glacier is that it is situated between rain-forest! It just happen that the Southern Alps, a mountainous range running longitudinally in the middle of NZ South Island, hold up rain cloud from the Tasman Sea and cause the area to experience heavy rainfall and subsequent fall in temperature (esp at the valleys) help maintained the glaciers from melting away. Conquering is a bit hyperbolic I must say, as I only took a half day guided tour. Though rated as medium fitness intensity, it certainly was a light workout as during the tour, we stop a lot to allow our guides pike away ice to make steps. The tour took us through the rain-forest surrounding the glacier before proceeding to hike up the glacier itself. Special footwear (Spikes) was provided. Once there, the glacier is certainly magnificent. The ice are bluish in colour as ice absorbs all light except blue colour. The ice cubes you see in your fridges are white because it contain lots of air while these glaciers are compacted ice. Other activities on the glacier that could be done are heli ride and ice climbing. Wiki article on Franz Josef glacier is here. Anyway, here are some of my personal pics for sharing. Up top is me at the glacier it self, in between some icy valley there. Bottom photo: Top - the guide. The temperature is pretty warm, but the ice are cold. The guide was piking all day, thats why he's just in his short-sleeve shirt compared to us who are all in blue jackets. Bottom - More photo of the glacier and the group we were in.

weirdo

Ironman was good but not great. At least it wasn't a waste of money. On a totally unrelated note, in my North Island travels that I chronicled couple of months ago in this blog, I came across this weirdo at Whakatane. Me and my travelling companion checked in at backpackers once arrived at Whakatane and as what normal Muslim would do, we stop by and pray our daytime prayers before continuing travelling. So we prayed at our dorm room and there was this guy who was sitting on his bed and as soon as I started praying that guy went on to say out aloud "O Jesus, please give guidance to this man, blablabla..." --- to be continued. I'm knackered today. Before I dose off, these are some of Bizarro comics that for Malaysians out there might be familiar with if you read The Star comic section. (Mai - it's Bizarro not 'gonzo' as I have mentioned before but I did get the last syllable right, sort of...).

Rotorua part 2

I'm back from Akaroa and am tired. However, I still managed to complete more panoramic photo of my North Island trip and the top one is from Waimangu Volcanic Valley and the bottom one is Lake Tarawera, both of which is several kilometers away from Rotorua. I'm pretty novice at producing panoramic photo and there were several failed ones. I'm not sure if this is true, but it seemed that large body of water, ie lake, is not suitable for such photography technique. Another problem I came across is that item up close can interfere with item up far if the item up close is too close. Then there is the problem of one of the photo component going off at an angle. I think I could overcome this last problem by using a tripod. Before anyone takes advice from this entry, I would like to reiterate that I'm a complete idiot when coming to taking panoramic photo.

Rotorua Part 1

In an hour time, I'm off to Akaroa for a 3 day course on Maori Health. So in the meantime, I present to you a panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua. I misjudged one of the photos and the angle went off horribly and my attempt to get 360 degree panoramic photo of Lake Rotorua failed. The quality of photo was considerably reduced to reduce the size to less than 200kb.

Taupo part 3

The final edition of this entry and I just want to summarise what I did at Taupo in chronological order as not to confuse anyone:

Night 1: Visited the Tokaanu Thermal Park and walked the hot pool trail that was behind it. Tokaanu is a few kilometers off Turangi, which is a few kilometers south of Taupo on State Highway 1. Later, we drove around Taupo, stopping at several lookout points there (photo of Lake Taupo during dusk at bottom of entry). We stayed both night at Rainbow Lodge Backpackers. I highly recommend that place, it deserved the highest BPP (an organization that organize discounts for backpacking accomodation) ratings they had.

Day 2: Went to Tongariro National Park (photo top-left), Whakapapa, Mt Ruapehu Ski field (photo right-bottom and top), a Maori redoubt (photo bottom-left), and Lake Rotaia. Finished the day with a hot pool bath at Tokaanu Thermal Park

Day 3: Went to Huka falls (photo in previous post), Huka Prawn Park (not worth visiting unless you only plan to dine), Huka falls jet boat ride (good fun), and Craters of the Moon thermal park (photo in previous post). The rest of the day spent traveling to Rotorua.

Taupo part 2

The chronicle blabla title is a bit too long so in keeping with my lazy attitude, I'm sticking with the simpler version from now on. We spent 2 nights here at Taupo though originally planned for one, but there was much to see and do here. For starters, Taupo lake is stunningly beautiful. This blue lake was once a huge volcanic crater belonging to a volcano that is thought erupted 25,000 years ago and gave birth to North Island itself. I think, I might be talking crap here (about giving birth part, the rest I'm sure is true) and couldn't be bothered checking my facts about it. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photo of the lake (there's plenty of that on the net) but here are some photo (top 2) I have taken on the Taupo bungy, which is located at the river flowing from the lake:

So, no, I didn't do the bungy. Reason: I already did it 2 years ago on a more spectacular paltform. My take on bungy: do it. If anyone come and live in NZ and never does it, they are missing out. Taupo Bungy is one of the cheapest in NZ but bungy is not that cheap. At Taupo it'll cost you NZD 140 for the first jump. Subsequent jump for that day is NZD 40. The one I did, the Nevis at Queenstown - a mere 143m drop and 8 second freefall, compared to this one, just less than 50m - cost me nzd 200. The night prior to the jump, I thought "wtf was I thinking? If it goes wrong, its suicide." and "200 dollars for an 8 second jump that may kill you, are you serious?". I don't know, or bother to go looking for, about the casualty rate of bungy jumping but it should be pretty low because it remains a commercial activity and so what the heck, I did it but not without fear. I looked back at my jump, which was caught and immortalised on DVD, and the look on my face had fear in every inches of it. I rationalise by thinking how safe it would be, but my, when you fall, the speed of your fall is tremendous as the grounds seemed closer and closer in mere seconds, and you don't feel any pull of the rubber that prevents you from going splat. Lucky I didn't wet my pants - the other thing I was afraid of but just to get the facts straight, I never ever did in my life -and the jump went well - hey, I'm still here. Before the jump, the operator told us that the rubber was from Malaysia, he even said "this better be good". It was good, as one would say Malaysia Boleh. Anyway, I was there at Taupo Bungy because my traveling companion did the jump. When asked what he felt, his answer was "confused" due to "mismatching between perception of movement and sense of movement". Weird.

Back to the photo, the bottom-left is from The Craters Of The Moon, a thermal park where there is a self-tour walk through a park filled with numerous fumaroles, craters and some mud pools. The bottom-right is from Huka Falls. Thats taken from one of the lookout point there. One can also go on a speedboat ride in which the boat does 360 spins or just go on a slow cruise. I opted the speedboat ride and it was plenty of fun. That was nzd 99. Now I'm off to Asr.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Taupo Part I

Finally, we arrived to Taupo, the start of the "thermal adventure". Don't quote me on this (who does???) but I reckon this is where the volcanic strip that runs across the North Island starts. This volcanic strip features various hot pools, mud pools, geysers, fumaroles, terraces and volcanoes. As with many stunning natural formations in NZ, they become tourist attractions. Fortunately most are cheap/free as most consisted of self-tour. Our first stop was the Tokaanu Thermal Park photographed here in the first three photos from top left going clockwise:

The top left is a boiling mud pool. I heard the mud is good for the skin but I didn't test that theory out. There is a place in between Taupo and Rotorua where one could bath in mud (among others such as hot water pool bath...) for a cool NZD 99 but I didn't bother going because of the price and time. Anyway, Tokaanu Thermal Park charge NZD 8 for a 20 minute hot water bath and then as-long-as-you-like bath in a public swimming pool. That was the cheapest that we ever stumbled on, but also has the most modest facilities. The water is a warm 40 degrees which one need some time to adjust to. And I must admit, 20 minute in a hot water pool is long enough as after 15 minutes I got light headed and needed some time out. Oh, and I did dip my head into the pool and you're not supposed to because one can catch amoebic meningitis that way. Anyway, I only read the warning signs, which was posted on the back of the door to the pool!, after several dips of the head. I'm totally fine by the way, no Kernig sign, no neck stiffness whatsoever after. Continuing with the photo, top-right is the river that flows infront of Tokaanu Thermal Park and bottom-right is one of hot water pool found outside the park. Finally, bottom-left is a photo of the Tongariro River. A river full of rainbow trout thus a popular angling spot. There is even a National Trout Center there where the rainbow trout is farmed.

Cronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Manawatu

So, at the end of the 4th day at Wellington, we headed off to Palmerston North, which is located at the region known as Manawatu. This place was a mere stopping place on our way to Taupo, famed for its beautiful Lake Tuapo and cheap outdoor activity. Taupo (and Rotorua) is the North Island equivalent of Queenstown and Wanaka but more on that later. Anyway, Manawatu has its attraction as well. One of them is the Te Amati Wind Farm, photographed here on top right of the photo:





There are various places to view the wind farm, but the best is the one underneath where the car park is literally beneath one the wind turbine. Wind as a renewable energy source sounds very ideal with its almost non-existent pollution and relatively cheap cost, but practically it is hard to be viable. A place need to have winds that blows frequently enough and strong enough and must also be not too far from its beneficiaries. Anyway, we didn't stay long because we can't. It's too cold, the wind chill is just too much even in spring (1st December is "officially" recognized as start of summer in NZ). The other three photo from bottom right going clockwise: some random valley in the Manawatu region; typical NZ highway - 1 lane with not many cars punctuated by 2 laned "passing lanes" at certain intervals; Mt Ruapehu - one of the 3 active volcanoes in NZ, I heard it just recently erupted some time last year but I am certain that it did erupt in 1997.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Wellington

And so the journey continues with our 4 days & 4 nights stop at the capital which was named after Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, the victor of Battle of Waterloo. Here we were graciously hosted by our friends from the medical schools who chose/forced to go here after their third year. Here, our typical day goes like this: morning breakfast with free hot chocolate at med school - sightseeing - lunch - sightseeing - dinner hosted by one of our friend/PSD officer/MSD attache. This part of the trip was more on meeting friends/recruiting people than seeing the city but the city itself is certainly beautiful, much like the rest of NZ, with plenty of attraction to go to. Some photos:

From top left clockwise: NZ parliament with the executive wing affectionately known as "the beehive" on the left; Maori moko (face tattoo) display in NZ art gallery; NZ parliament balloon; Wellington Mosque; Wellington from Mt Victoria Lookout.

From top left clockwise: NZ parliament library; 2 guys "jiwang"at Wellington beach; Wellington Zoo; Massey University.

Chronicle of Thermal Adventurer: Chch-Picton

I'm gonna totally ignore my previous post and start this 4-part series chronicling my 12 day adventure at North Island.

The journey began with a 5 hour bus ride to Picton . We took off from Christchurch at 0700, on an Intercity coach. On the way to Picton, we stopped by at Kaikora, a town famous for its whale-watching cruise and Bleinhem, a town I don't know anything about. The bus ride wasn't particularly spectacular in itself, mostly because I slept the way through - a product of a purposely sleepless night. It's something I would not replicate nor would recommend anyone to do. Catching up on sleeping in a long-haul bus ride in New Zealand is definitely not enjoyable as you will never get enough deep sleep or the REM phase of sleep to refresh your body. I attribute this to one main reason: The seats isn't comfy enough. When compared to Malaysian coaches (those that goes to Malaysian East Coast from KL), the seats are tiny (NZ: 4 seats per row compared to 3 per row for M'sia), and doesn't recline as much (according to my memory) which leaves your head exposed to those embarassing 'bobbing' and 'hanging' positions. Anyway, it was the cheapest (??) way to get to Wellington at that time. The total cost from Christchurch per person was:

Intercity Bus ride Christchurch - Picton: NZD 23.00 (on web saver option - only available when purchasing tickets online using credit card, and on certain days, student price = NZD 41)

Interislander Ferry ride Picton - Wellington: NZD 52.00 (standard price. Web saver option = nzd 45.00 but departs at 1300)

Total = NZD 68.00

Alternative:

Drive yourself: Interislander Ferry ride vehicel x1 = NZD 60.00 + (1 person = NZD 52.00) = NZD 112.00 + estimated feul (NZD 60.00) = 172.00. A cheaper option if you can get at least 4 people going on the same car.

Flights: ~NZD 90.00 (Blenheim/Picton - Wellington). As of 12 November 2007, Fly Pacific Blue will start operating from Chch-Welly and fares could be as low as NZD60 (inc tax).

Kaikora:

Picton: