New Zealand

One of the most adventurous trips of my life so far, the journey to New Zealand began with a direct flight by United/Air New Zealand from San Francisco, on Friday Nov 22, 2019, reaching Auckland on Sunday (because of the 21 hour time difference).

North Island

Upon picking up our rental car from Auckland airport, we (my husband and I) drove straight to the iconic Sky Tower. If you're a coffee lover, you must check out the amazing Good Times cafe that's right across the Sky Tower. Charged up from that coffee, we decided to take a stroll on the nearby streets and walked into a carnival with lots of street food shops, games for kids and hundreds of people singing Christmas songs. It was their Christmas tree lighting ceremony event. I wish we could stay at this place a bit longer but we had our Airbnb booked in Rotorua and we wanted to visit the famous Hamilton gardens enroute. We grabbed some food from an Indian take out restaurant (the Masala Chai made my day) and bid adieu to Auckland.


Hamilton Gardens is a vast complex of multiple small themed gardens, from Japanese tea garden to Indian Char Bagh garden. Depending on your pace, interest and the number of times you stop for a photo, you'd need around 2 to 3 hours here. There are also dozens of street food options, and food trucks just outside the gardens. One day in this sporty country and I can easily say the New Zealanders love to be outdoors in the sun.


Our Rotorua Airbnb with a lake view, was our home for the next four days. The next morning we decided to skip our plan to go to Wai-o-tapu and instead went to Agrodome for their farm tour. We saw sheep of all shapes, sizes and forms. Our tour guide gave us food to feed the sheep and alpacas. I'd never seen alpacas from so close. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget- highly recommended. On our way back from Agrodome, we'd seen sign boards for Zorbing and decided to find more about it. We ended up doing two rides of Zorbing and enjoyed thoroughly. Again highly recommended thing to do. Staying out in the sun for so many hours had drained our energies and we went back to our Airbnb to rest for few hours before the Maori cultural fest. As someone who've attended the Luau event in Maui, we found the Maori performance somewhat disappointing. But it's still a good way to know more about the Maori culture, and not to forget the sumptuous meal full of local specialities.


Day three on the North island, we had a tour booked to White Island, Whakatane which is New Zealand's biggest marine active volcano. The tour consisted of a 3.5 hour round trip cruise ride to the island and then a 1.5 hour guided walking tour of the island including the crater of the volcano. The cruise ride itself was very scenic and we even saw dolphins, swimming and competing with our ship. We’d never seen dolphins in their natural habitat before, it was definitely a sight to behold. Our guides were also very interactive and friendly, before we were about to reach the island, we were provided with gas masks and helmets to protect from the smell of Sulphur. I learnt so much about volcanos that day, and thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures/videos but that place did have a creepy feel to be honest. And it shocked me to the core to hear just a few days after we came back to California, there was an eruption on the White island killing more than 20 tourists and injuring many more. As travel enthusiasts, we research and spend a lot of time reading about all our tours before booking them. But as a tourist, we can only get as much information from the internet and White Island Tours had five star ratings on all the travel websites. It's very, very unfortunate what happened there and we thank God every day as it could have been us, easily, and pray for the families of those who lost their lives 💔.


Next day we started our drive to Taupo. First stop- Huka Falls. We didn't do the jet boat ride there although we saw few boats in the river and it looked like a lot of fun. But we were short on time, so without much ado, we went to Bungee Taupo for a once in a lifetime adventure, bungy jumping. We did the tandem jump from a height of 47m, touching the lake on our first drop, and it was just an out of this world mind-blowing experience. The only hard part was the jump and we didn't even do that, the person who tied our ropes, pushed us (sometimes all we need is a little push, right?). In my opinion, we couldn't have chosen a better place and time to do this. I love my husband for being such a sport and taking this leap of faith with me. After being literally hung upside down and oscillating like a pendulum, we both needed some fresh air and time to just sit and relax for a while. We took some pictures with the LOVETAUPO sign and sat on the beach nearby before deciding to make our way back to Rotorua.


Day 5 was our last day in North Island, and as they say, reserve the best for the last, we had our Hobbiton tour today and being LOTR's super crazy fan, my husband was really excited for this one. We arrived at the shire by our rental car, and from there they take us on a bus to the Hobbiton movie set. The bus ride itself is so scenic that you'll miss this place as soon as you've left it. The set starts with a series of small hobbit houses, soon leading up to Bilbo's and Sam's houses. Our guide was great and you can easily guess he's a big fan LOTR fan himself. We had read people mentioning in some of the reviews that they felt the tours were rushed but we didn't feel that at all. The tour takes about two hours and is worth every penny and more. We even got complimentary drinks after the end of the tour. It's safe to say visiting Hobbiton was one of the biggest highlights of our entire NZ trip. As a tip, do charge your phones or cameras to 100% because you are going to take at least a couple hundred pictures here. Before bidding goodbye to North Island, we had another activity planned for the day- Waitomo glowworm caves. Again a must see thing, considering the fact that there are very few places on Earth where the glow worms can survive in their natural habitat. There are no photos allowed inside the cave and the one you're seeing below is a picture they clicked outside the cave and edited the background for us in exchange of 50 NZD (so much for social media, eh?). With a feeling of accomplishment and content, we started our journey back to Auckland. We stayed at the Heartland hotel which is very close to AKL airport as we had an early morning flight to Queenstown the next day.






South Island


Reaching Queenstown around 11 am allowed us just enough time to relax and explore Queenstown and the nearby vista points of Glendorchy and Arrowtown. The moment you step into Queenstown, you get the feeling of a popular tourist destination, crowded (almost overcrowded) with small restaurants, supermarkets and multiple travel agencies competing to try and sell the various adventurous activities Queenstown is famous for. We happened to chat with one such travel agent who was standing outside his shop attempting to lure tourists into booking an activity with them. If we had some buffer time, he would have been successful in making us buy their paragliding tour that spiked our interest. Frankly, it all felt a little too commercialized and though I love Queenstown for the breathtakingly beautiful mountain views and mouthwatering food (some really cool Indian food fine dining options and bakeries), I was glad we had our Airbnb on the outskirts, away from all the hustle bustle of the city.


Super excited and looking forward to the very famous Milford Sound, which was a good 4.5 hour drive from Queenstown, we started early the next day. The drive to Milford is so scenic, you’d want to stop for photos almost every 10 minutes or so. We’d read about this online so we kept some buffer time for pictures. The only big stop we took was at Te Anau. There are no shops and fuel/gas stations after this point so we gorged on whatever vegetarian food we could get here. We reached Milford well in time, for our cruise with Real Journeys. There are a lot of companies that do these tours, we went with Real Journeys based on good reviews of their Nature Cruise and we are so glad we picked them. The cruise was all about picturesque landscape and breathtaking views. Not expecting to see a lot of wildlife during this tour, we were amazed at the sight of penguins not very far from our ship. Without a doubt, watching penguins at the coast of Tasman sea, that moment, became another highlight of the trip. We also saw many waterfalls along the way and even got splashes of water when the ship went close to one of the falls, good thing that we were carrying our rain jackets. Overall it was a great tour, and one of the best ways to see Milford Sound. Also sidenote, they had complimentary coffee as well (which we realized only when they were closing the kitchen area :| ). Our tour finished around 6:30 and we arrived back to Queenstown around 10:30 pm.






Next morning we started our day with croissants, stuffed breads and finger licking pastries from Mrs Ferg cafeteria (must must try). After that we had a skydiving tour booked which got cancelled because of bad weather. It was drizzling and too windy for any activity which involved flying. Dejected, as sky diving was the one activity we'd been waiting eagerly to do here. But our feeling of disappointment was quickly replaced by another checklist activity- kiwi bird park tour. The fact that kiwi is the national animal and national bird of NZ, combined with another fact that kiwis are becoming extinct, we thought it best to spend the sky-diving time watching kiwis in a simulated night environment (kiwis are nocturnal) at the park. I just felt so peaceful there. After checking out some gift shops and grabbing more pastries and sandwiches from Mrs Ferg bakery, we bid farewell to the charming and enchanting Queenstown, only to visit another natural wonder- Lake Wanaka with its most instagrammed tree. We had heard from friends that Wanaka is mostly just about the lone tree, standing tall and proud in the middle of the Lake Wanaka. But after visiting the neighborhood, I wished we’d kept more time for Wanaka to check out its attractive art stores and antique gift shops which were all closed by the time we reached. There are also some really good fine dining restaurants with rooftop and outdoor seating options. We dined at the terrace of an Indian restaurant, Bombay Palace. The mesmerizing view of mountains, and the company of amazing food made our evening really special. I don’t think I’ve ever had such authentic Dal Makhani in California. If you have plans to visit and would like to check them out, they have a branch in Queenstown as well. We had booked a holiday home in Lake Tekapo for the next two nights, and as it was a good three hour drive from Wanaka, we hit the road as soon as we finished dinner. Lake Tekapo is a unique, isolated place and you realize it as soon as you are about to arrive, but due to extra strong winds that night, our experience and stay was nothing but extraordinary. Our cottage was a charming, rustic wooden house, but the constant noises that we heard from the creaking of wood, and some sort of hard objects striking the roof, made our stay somewhat horrific and one that we were going to remember for a very long time. To add to the horror, a town siren started ringing just minutes after we entered the cottage. If you're a person who follows signs, like I do, you'd not want to spend a single minute in that house but we took our chances. Luckily we had a stargazing tour around midnight and it was a relief to step out of that "haunted" house for sometime. The Dark Sky Project Stargazing tour, was like a divine intervention for us, easily becoming one of the biggest highlights of the trip. Arriving at their base 20 minutes before our tour, with nothing else to do with the extra time, we started checking out their store that had all sorts of interesting things related to science and space, basically the things I used to be very excited about, as a small geeky school girl. We ended up buying a puzzle book (which hasn’t ever been opened since we came back). Having heard from the receptionist that a previous summit tour had been cancelled due to heavy winds, we kept our fingers crossed. Since ours was a crater tour, the tour guides decided to go through with the tour and so it began. The tour started with a 15 minute shuttle ride to the man-made crater. Once at the crater, they gave us red laser lights to find our way as its pitch dark there and cellphones are not allowed. The guides were so knowledgeable and helped us all see the Southern Cross with naked eye. We also saw many stars in the Milky way through the telescopes they had set up there. I felt like a little girl beaming with joy at every star I saw. Needless to say, we enjoyed the whole experience very much. For those interested in knowing more about this tour, check out https://www.darkskyproject.co.nz, even if you’ve done a stargazing tour before, you’ll not be disappointed if you do this tour because the stars you see there, won’t be visible from any other hemisphere but the Southern hemisphere. The tour lasted about two hours. Super exhausted, back at our cottage, we just slept, slept and slept, ignoring those weird noises and winds.


We started our day with a visit to the lake. The lake is huge and the color of water is a different shade of blue, adding a mystic feel to the town. To add to the beauty of the lake, the land around it was completely covered with purple lupins which was another bonus of planning our visit around spring/early summer time. As our itinerary for today involved a lot of hiking, we had to leave the lake after spending about half an hour there. Enroute to Mount Cook National Park, we stopped only once for coffee and some snacks. This store also operated heli tours, but they were not doing any helicopter tours that time as it had started to drizzle. The receptionist told us they were expecting a storm today. We quickly hit the road and drove to Mount Cook National Park. Geared up with our rain jackets, we decided to go ahead with the hike around the Hooker Valley trail, rain or shine, not letting the bad weather spoil another plan for us. The Hooker valley is a roughly 3 hr round trip with well constructed tracks and bridges, making it easy to walk for anyone with a basic level of fitness. But the rain does add a little adventure to even a simple hike. Only thing that encouraged us to keep going was seeing other tourists behind us. I wished we had done the trail on some other day when it was not raining so heavily, but it was the second last day of our trip, and the storm was only getting started (it turned out to be a pretty bad thunderstorm, with floods and evacuations in all of South Island, the next few days). When our raincoats also got completely drenched in rain, it was the last straw and we decided to turn back from the third bridge, but the hike was still totally worth it, offering spectacular views of glaciers with gushing flow of river beneath the bridge, and a thousand mini water falls from the mountains above, easily making it a must-must do activity in South Island. By the time we arrived back to Lake Tekapo, we were famished. We had delicious pizza at a cozy restaurant just minutes away from our cottage, ending our day a bit early for the tour tomorrow.


The last day of our trip, and going by our policy of reserving the best for the last, like the last day of North Island, we had a unique and very exclusive Lord of the Rings tour to Edoras and some of the actual locations shown in the movies. We took the tour from Methven as its closer to Tekapo, but the tour starts from Christchurch. So when they picked us, the van was already full and we couldn't get seats together (but we both got window seats :D). And don't worry about losing your ride, with Lord of the Rings written all over it and the “EDORA5” license plate, the shuttle was hard to miss. The cherry on top was that our tour guide/shuttle driver was one of the crew members of the lights and camera team when the LOTR series was shot. During the ride, he would constantly switch between telling us stories from his own experiences on the shooting locations, and playing select clippings of the movies, rare interviews of the actors and the director. First drop of the tour was at a completely abandoned small town, more like a “vacation town” where people don’t actually live but visit occasionally to enjoy the area. There are no shops there so everything you need you bring along with you. Next we paused our journey in front of the mountain, Mt. Sunday, where Edoras was built. He showed us pictures of Edoras which were taken from this exact same spot and you can easily compare them. The area is a private property and only certified vehicles are allowed. It had been raining a lot so the dirt tracks were filled with water but our brave driver drove uphill through a shallow river. Maybe it’s about time to mention that he also gave us replicas of weapons and Rohan’s flag. I carried the Sting (Frodo’s sword) while we hiked to the top of the mountain. Stopping at the Mt.Potts lodge for food (which was included) on our way back, this otherworldly tour ended around 4 pm. From Methven, it was a one hour drive to our Airbnb in Christchurch. We spent the evening visiting a few tourist spots and enjoying the bright and lively atmosphere of the city. Giving in to the feel of the city, we dined at the outdoors of Bacon Bros Burgers, where we had a veg burger with a hilariously unique name- Boom Boom Nutri Boom.


With a heavy feeling in our hearts next morning we flew back to Auckland from Christchurch, for our return flight to SFO. Auckland airport is huge and I was secretly glad we had some extra time (for shopping). The airport stores had great deals on chocolates, perfumes and cosmetics, much cheaper than what we found at the souvenir shops in the city.






Of all the countries we've been to so far, NZ touched our hearts like very few could. The green landscape covered with those white furry creatures (sheep) almost everywhere you go, is a sight that's going to stay with me for a very long time. There's a reason you'll find NZ taking a spot in almost all the lists of happiest countries of the world. There is a calmness and peace in it's air, a positivity and general goodness in people, that is difficult to let go. Needless to say, will miss NZ. Till we meet again!