Live life to its fullest!: NZ Extreme Part 2

Sixth day - we were still in Queenstown. It's SKI day!!! WoooOooo so excited! It's the 7 of us bungy survivors again who went for ski at the Coronet's Peak =) We all took the starter course as it's our first tiem skiiing (except for Nooi Hoay). Our instructor was an old but fit man who was patient in teraching us the basic skills of skiiing. There were 2 session of 1.5 hours each, one in the morning and another one after lunch. Gosh, the first session was a tiring one...coz we could not balance ourselves on the ski well enough yet, and most of us strained our abdominal muscles to keep control of our balance on the skis to not fall off on the snow...not that it's painful coz the snow is 'soft' anyway =P

It was lunch time after the first session, and before lunch we took some pcis in the snow =D

I think she sat like a baby in the snow =P

This is a great picture!! I love the effect of snow thrown into mid-air!!

After lunch we went up the conveyer belt...called 'Magic Carpet' by our instructor, which brought us up to the top of the really steep slope. And we skied down the slope....wheeeEEeee it's really fun!! How exciting to experience adrenalin rush and skiing at fast speed down the slope...the more I skied, the more I got the hang of it =D

Yeah the lady from the clothes hire shop gave me both the ski pants and jacket in black! I asked for a jacket of another colour but she didn't have one of the same size... I looked really black against the white snow background =.=|||

It was a tiring day but I'm really glad that I learnt a new skill which I would remember for the rest of my life, really thanks to our instructor =) After dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Queenstown we went back to our motel to celebrate Nooi Hoay's birthday.

Seventh day - it has been a week we're in New Zealand! It's also the day we left Queenstown for Te Anau. After checking out of the motel, we drove to Deer Park Heights for a safari...it's also the place where the trilogy Lord of the Rings was shot.

The view from the hilltop was really magnificent. The first animals that we encountered were ponies, and then pigs, ducks, llamas...just then the owner/manager of the are drove his pickup and gave us an aluminium tin with pellets to feed the llamas. There's also an innocent-looking donkey...

They came when we made the jingling sound with our aluminium tin

LOTR scene

Driving up the hill, we saw deer and cattle...and also mountain goats and their cute kids =D

Deer

Another LOTR scene

Thanks to Ryan the shepherd we managed to drive our way 'smoothly' around, trying to avoid the llamas and goats which blocked the roads.

We went back to Queenstown to have lunch at a Thai restaurant, then continuing on our journey to Te Anau. We reached our destination earlier than we expected...and it was quite a shock for us all coz the place was so gloomy with a thick cloud of mist. The backpackers that we checked in was very cold and there's only a sole heater in our room which wasn't good enough to warm our bodies let alone the room. We cooked our own dinner and had a little drive tour around the seemingly dead town...not many shops were open and there were little street lights around the area. We could even hardly see anyone walking; Li Ping even said that it reminded her of some vampire movie scene. As there was nothing much we could do, we went back to the backpackers and had a nice chat throughout the night.

Eighth day was the day for a nice cruise at Milford Sound!! We drove up the snowy misty roads from Te Anau to Milford Sound, stopping by some places for a few pics. Reached our destination for a great lunch before going on the cruise at 1pm. Immersing ourselves in the breathtaking sceneries with the cool breeze caressing our cheeks and drinking a nice warm cup of coffee/tea, it's certainly a well spent afternoon...

Loving nature

When the sea and sky is divded only by a horizontal line...

We even saw dolphins and seals!! Everyone was so excited at the sight of the cute dolphins swimming together with our ship. We also passed by a waterfall...

...and we went to the underwater observatory.

Corals & fishes

We drove back to Te Anau (there's no accommodation around Milford Sound) for dinner of pizzas and pasta and had another nice chat before going to sleep.

Ninth day was spent at Dunedin where we went to visit the Cadbury chocolate factory,

Welcome to Cadbury World!

had lunch with our friends in Dunedin at Jitsu (Japanese restaurant),

Monash & Otago gang

My salami bento

and walked along Baldwin Street, which is the steepest street in the world!

This is also the day we parted...5 of us flew back to Christchurch while the rest of us drove to Oamaru. Before heading to Oamaru we went to Otago Peninsula to watch penguins, but it's too dark and we could hardly see anything though we could hear the seals.

View of Otago Peninsula

We stayed in backpackers in Oamaru, which is also an art gallery. It's a really nice place with a homey feeling...

They have a music room!

Love this pic!

Tenth day - the last day of our trip! We drove back to Christchurch to meet the rest, stopping for a 'real fruit ice cream' on the way. We met Merlin, Yi Chiann and Shuang-Xiu who brought us to a Japanese restaurant for lunch.