By the time we touched down in Christchurch after a grueling 10 hours 15 minutes flight, we were utterly exhausted. We flew from 8:00am to 11:00pm. Despite that, we were still really excited to step foot into Kiwi Land. It was cold that night in Christchurch.
We stayed at Antonio's Motor Lodge for the night and I highly recommend this place. It's a nice 2-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen. Really cosy. And is quite central as well. Bear's aunt and uncle dropped by with home-made pau and cake for our supper. Really heart them. We finally konk~ed out at around 2 -3 am.
The next day, we kinda knew that we were so hai-lat cos we need to be up at 7:00am for our Trans Alpine Scenic Train Ride. It is a 4-hour journey which takes us from Christchurch to Greysmouth where our rented car is waiting for us. All were not well-rested at all and was really groggy. One word : Zombified.
True to its name - the entire journey was really scenic and breathtaking. It was an eye-opener I feel like I'm part of Lord of the Rings gang. Every turn and every stretch brings you to an entirely new and different landscape. Amazing!
About a quarter into the journey before the train make its way up the mountain, there was a quick stop to pick up and alight passengers. Gung-ho me, Bear, my parents, and my uncle/aunty went down and took our sweet time capturing pictures until we nearly missed the train. -.-" In our rush, we boarded the wrong carriage. Needless to say we were stuck standing/squatting/leaning in an open deck in the middle of winter and wind blowing at us at full speed for close to 1 hour 45 minutes before the halfway stop! Torture, I kid you not.
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| Yup, stuck on the open deck for 1 hour 45 minutes. |
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| Happy and oblivious to the impending torture coming my way. |
We sigh a loud relief when we reached Arthur's Pass, our halfway stop. The town only has a population of 20 people!! Unbelievable!
After Arthur's Pass, we slept all the way to Greysmouth from the tedious "exercise" of standing in the cold T_T. Greysmouth was really cold as well and it was drizzling. We quickly had our lunch at McDonalds and bought some groceries to be cooked that night for dinner before making our 3-hours drive to the glacier town of Franz Josef to put up a night.
By the time we reached our motel in Franz Josef, the sun was setting and soon it was night-time. We were so tired, we slept at 10:30pm immediately after our "home-cooked" dinner.
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| Beautiful sun-set in Franz Josef. |
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| Quint motel in Franz Josef which I love. |
And that, concludes Day 1 / 2 of my trip.
Love;
Mrs Lee
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