At first i thought only 3 of us are going. Then J sent me his e-tix. K sent me his e-tix a week before the scheduled departure. And then M threaten to leave the group (again! She must does this EVERYTIME we go on group trip) if I don’t upgrade the car. We have to frantically cancel all existing motel bookings and book apartment instead and upgrade the car to a bigger one (a camry).
Reached Changi around sunset time.
The plane that ferried us was a old SQ with no on demand shows (they basically keep repeating the movies so if you missed the beginning too bad, no rewind/ffw function will be entertained). Quite a wrong start if you looked at it. Only consolation is J got extra leg room since he is sitting at 36C (36C is normally not an emergency exit row but because this SQ plane is a old junkie…somehow 36C is the emergency exit row).
View of the Southern Alps from the plane:
Our woes didn’t end there. Long queue and slow immigration clearance at CC Airport is one. The immigration officer kept asking us for our return ticket and itinerary (halo, aunty, nowadays everything electronic, where got print out return ticket one??) And K is on a different flight from Hong Kong through Auckland. He is not in the airport yet. We have no idea what time he will arrived. We found out later that he will arrive at Domestic Terminal. But what time?? Lucky there is a free internet kiosk. I checked my mailbox, no email from him. I emailed him and leave him a fb message.
Got onto the courtesy bus to GoRental office, the road outside the airport is called Orchard Road (doesnt flood one). The lady pointed to the US Airforce plane parked at the hangar across the fence, said that those are flights bound for the Antartica (NZ is the base for flying personnel and resources to Antartica). Once we reached the office, the lady has everything sorted out within 30 minutes. We got our camry. Not really new but ok. Rusty bits here and there but still a new camry. The colour is purple and that’s all M cares about. Put all our luggage in and off we went. Now we head to our first destination – supermarket! We went to Park & Save (yes, yellow! And they give 4 cents off per litre of petrol if you shop more than 30 dollars in a single receipt) and shop for tomorrow’s brekkie.
Golden kiwi sold at Park n Save:
Had the cheapest lunch at KFC (only NZD26.90 for 4 people as opposed to NZD30 for 1 person in Lake Tekapo later) yum yum! KFC is tasty even without sauce. After the lunch we drove back to the airport hoping that Kevin will be on the 1420 plane from Auckland but to no avail. We finally set off to Lake Tekapo at 3pm, still wondering what happened to Kevin. No email reply, no fb messages reply. Where could he ended up in? Isnt he on an earlier flight from Hong Kong at 3pm as opposed our 7pm flight? Strange strange strange.
Pleasant drive from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo via Geraldine, took us about 3 hours before we ended up at Pioneer Drive, where our motel is. Plenty of lupins along the road and at Lake Tekapo itself.
Last hurdle – M drove the Camry to the shelter of the motel and get stucked in narrow alley. We have to ask the owner Max to come out and help steering, for fear she might bring the whole wooden car shelter down by knocking into column. By the time we are all done and let out a sigh of relief, we couldn’t wait to head straight to the lake, which is turquoise in colour. The owner’s dog defied his master order and went to the lake before us, only to be pulled back to the house against its wish.
There is a huge plume of cloud stucked between hills not too far away. It is such a perfect picture day.
There is a couple taking wedding photo near the lake.
Water is cold though, I estimate 5°C water.
The little church is nearby.
I borrowed M’s bb and saw a status that K left on his fb and immediately understood what actually happened. His flight from HK delayed and he got held up at Auckland Airport by the immigration! I quickly left him a fb comment and inform him the new SIM card numbers of J and M, hopefully he can contact us when he reach CC.
We adjourned to the restaurants for dinner and come to a stark realization that we need to cook ourselves dinner in the future. So damn expensive! NZD 30 for a meal? Gotto be kidding me! We reluctantly settled down at a jap restaurant. When I nearly finished my meal, the long-awaited sms came, K has reached Lake Tekapo! I quickly grab the car key and went back to the motel and fetch him for dinner. He slowly recounted what happened – Auckland airport held him in custody and keep hounding him for return ticket, itinerary and cash on body to ascertain that he is really a tourist. According to the cab driver that drove him from CC to Lake Tekapo, a few HK drug traffickers nabbed recently and the Auckland police became very suspicious of Asians landing at Auckland Airport, CC airport is more reasonable. If only he landed in CC instead of transferring at Auckland! By the time he was allowed to enter the country, he has to take the later flight and end up in CC at 1720. He quickly take a cab from CC airport to Lake Tekapo (NZD300 after bargain). We are finally together, all 5 of us.
Because there are 5 of us, we upgraded to a much bigger apartment. Parkhead Motel is nice, our house has 3 rooms, 1 room with king size bed and attached bathroom, 1 room with queen sized bed and another room with two single beds.
Complete with living room, sky TV, kitchen, washing machine and came with an impeccable lake view. How cool is that?! Temperature outside is cold though, we have to switch on the heater in the end. Nothing beats taking a hot shower and change to shorts and watch sky TV, while eating the gold kiwi (Sweet!) we bought from Park & Save earlier. Totally relaxed and calm, just like how a holiday should be. The sun set pretty late. Full moon tonight hence not much star gazing possible. NZ uses a different plug system so K and I have to arrange the plugs so that everyone get to charge their camera batteries.
(The above 2 photos taken by K)
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