Our Travel Stories

After a really late night yesterday (stargazing outing), we took it easy today. We had relaxed morning with proper sit-down breakfast.

Today we wanted relaxed pace and decided to pursue less touristy spot. We drove to Lake Ohau for a walk around the lake shore. It was beautiful, with plenty of solitude with just the two of us on the walk and a lone kayaker on the lake.

This is not the peak spring flower season, but we still found a variety of plants and shrubs to admire. We saw couple of varieties of blue weed, the yarrow (white), deptford pink, and St. John’s wort (yellow)

On the drive back we went searching for the LOTR film location for fields of Pelennor where the great battle takes place at Gondor between Rohirrim and Orcs. Not sure, how close we got to the location, but we were happy with what we saw.

Even a drive around the countryside in New Zealand can surprise you with some amazing beauty.

That’s it for today. We plan to laze around for the rest of the day and then go for some Indian food to satisfy our Indian food cravings 😀.

An update: We drove to Lake Ruataniwha after dinner. This is small lake, relatively, in Twizel. It is the local beach with playground.

We both woke up fairly early, had a quick breakfast, packed sandwiches for lunch and left hotel to reach park by 8.30am. The plan was to start our first big hike early to avoid afternoon sun. Really glad we did that as the day got very hot later.

Paid NZ$ 25 for parking and only realized later that a 5 minute walk would have gotten us free parking 🤫.

We hiked the Sealy Trans hike which is a difficult hike because of the uneven 2200 steps, and 1800 ft ascend in the short span of 1.5 miles. It is called the “staircase to heaven”. We were slow as we climbed, but the views of the Mount Cook kept us going as the valley kept dropping away from us.

After 2/3 of the way, I (Mayuresh) needed to return to answer nature’s call. Shraddha though completed the hike.

Once Mayuresh left, I (Shraddha) was on my own for rest of the hike. This is a very popular hike and I spent as much time hiking as stopping for other hikers. The steps seem to go on forever, especially when coming down.

I am glad I did the hike though as the view from the top was awesome. It was super windy too. One of the hikers lost his backpack as it flew away 🤫

After this hike, Mayuresh joined me for a short hike to Kea Point. This hike takes you to the small glacier fed lake that is seen from the Sealy Trans hike. Wind was brutal here as well.

On the way back, we visited Lavender Farm. They had a small soft serve ice cream shop where all flavors had lavender in them. We tried the mango lavender, and vanilla lavender with honeycomb. The mango lavender had milder lavender flavor, but both were very good and refreshing after the hikes. The farm was pretty.

In the evening, we had good thai food. Later in the night we plan to go out for star gazing. With clear and pollution less skies, this area is known for star gazing. At the same time, the clear skies also make the sun rays hotter and sunscreen application becomes a must.

We started from Christchurch at 8.45am after a good breakfast at our Hotel. At breakfast, the hash browns were cooked very crispy and were really good.

We took a detour to Peel Forest Scenic Road and hiked the Big Tree walk to see the biggest tree in the forest- Kahikatea tree, 60 meters tall and that is about 1000 years old; just about when we got married 😊. The red wood from these Kahikatea trees were used for canoes by the native Maori people.

In this forest town, we visited a town church nestled at the foothills of the mountains. Mayuresh always loves visiting lonely churches and this one was beautiful.

Since we were in the farmlands, we saw sheep, cows and deer farms, and many farms growing cauliflower; may be one of the cash crop here. Funny thing is that whenever we tried to take pictures of sheep, many would pose and look at camera – looks like well trained for modeling 😊.

After the Big Tree walk, we visited Geraldine Cheese Factory in Geraldine town (duh), and bought their famous cheeses – brie, garlic gouda, Mt Peel Blue cheese and mozzarella cubes. We also enjoyed ice cream (2 scoops – one manuka honey & fig and other coffee). So no sugar diet went for a toss today!

Our next stop was at town Fairley. We bought 2 pies for our dinner from famous Bakery shop. We also bought locally grown apricots, peaches and cherries.

Then we visited Lake Tekapo and the famous Good Shepherd Church. These are very touristy spots and crowded places but still they are worth visiting. Lake Tekapo water was really clean and turquoise blue.

After this, we stopped to take pictures of Mount Cook at lake Pukaki and arrived in our hotel at 5.30pm.

Overall a very good day as we did what we like to do on our visits to countries – visit country side, visit local quaint worship places, eat locally grown seasonal fruits and also eat from famous eateries.

We did a quick grocery run for our stay, and planned hikes over the next couple of days. After some ~10 days of break, we will do proper hiking tomorrow.

A new day and a new country 😊. We took early morning flight from Nadi to Christchurch. While the plane was cruising over the north island, imagine our surprise to see this.

We had time today only for an easy stroll along the Avon river. It is very picturesque and lively with people walking, biking, boating, and in general enjoying the beauty.

We wish we had more time to do some boating, but did enjoy our walk.

Christchurch has many sculptures around the area we stayed in. Here are a few that we found interesting.

There is also a remembrance bridge and its arch that commemorates servicemen in world wars.

That was our day. We finished off the day with Mexican food for dinner and crashed in early.

Bula from beautiful Fijj. We landed very early and got picked up by the resort (Sofitel). However, early morning check-in means we would not get a room till much later.

Instead of waiting around, we booked a tour at the hotel for 6 hours to cover some attractions around Nadi.

Viseisei (Vuda) Village

The early settlers from Tanzania settled on this west point of Fiji island, now called as Viseisei village (Vuda, pronounced as Vunda). Guided visit to this village a good way to understand Fijian history.

The village was established in 1500 AD and has two tribes and five clans. This village has so far provided two prime ministers for Fiji. The chief of the village who lives here is 96 years old.

Our guide to the village was Una.

Garden of the sleeping giant

This beautiful tropical garden sits at the base of a mountain that looks like a sleeping giant. However, the star here are orchids and palms.

Also some of our pictures

Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple

We also visited the famous Hindu temple in Nadi. This is the Lord Murugan temple.

After Murugan darshan and his blessings, we had a lunch in Sarvanabharan outside the temple.

Went to local market and had the Kava juice, sampled local seasonal fruits like pineapple, bananas and watermelon.

We also did a quick souvenir shopping and bought traditional drum and Kava cup as souvenirs.

We later booked snorkeling trip for the next day. Came back to the hotel around 3pm. The room was ready.

After quick shower and a nap, we had a wonderful Fijian celebration on the hotel property with traditional Fijian music and delicacies like Lovo.

As sun was setting, we had a short stroll on the beach and retired for the day.

Day 2 Nadi: Mamanuca Island

We dedicated this day exclusively for snorkeling activities. We brought our own snorkeling gear for this. We took Captain Cook Cruise to the Mamanuca island and had lot of fun.

The crew was energetic and encouraged us to participate. That’s how we ended up with another round of kava on the ship.

Initially the weather was great and you can see Mayuresh taking it easy in the cabana.

However, that did not last and as soon as we started to snorkel, it started to rain so heavily that our guide suspended the snorkeling activity. We can say that we did snorkel in the rain albeit for just a few minutes. After lunch, the rain dropped to a drizzle, but Mayuresh decided not to go for snorkel and decided just to enjoy a swim. Shraddha did go snorkeling. It was interesting to snorkel in windy weather, and though there were many colorful fish and variety of corals, it was tiring swimming in strong waves and the guide opted to limit the snorkel trip to the outer corals. We need to return again sometime to truly experience Fiji snorkeling.

We returned back to our hotel at 5.30pm. We had dinner at 6.45pm. After dinner, we packed our bags for next day’s flight for Christchurch, New Zealand. Overall, it was a fun day.

We love the outdoors and to travel. This our attempt to share our experiences with you and make you dear reader part of our journey