mr & mrs webster's excellent adventure part one

Recently a member in the photomalaysia forum went for a trip to new zealand and shared his wonderful photos of the trip.
After seeing the photos, the webster felt than maybe he should document his trip to NZ too. You know lah, saja nak show off.
So anyway, mr and mrs webster went to NZ for 14 days (3 march to 16 march) in 2005.
We did the-rent-own-car-and-drive-by-ourselves thing. You know lah, just so that we can bathe in the glory of being presumed as smart and daring when those ah ee from the market type start saying 'you not scared meh, you can find way meh, can do like that one meh, how u find your way leh dan bermacam macam lagi'.
To keep our cost down, we stayed in youth hostels. NZ has this wonderful hostel chain called YHA and have hostels all over. The rooms in the locations that we stayed at are clean and hospitable.
Our itenerary was something like this. We first flew in into auckland and picked up the rental car. Then just go for leisurely jalan jalan around auckland on first day. took a ferry over to devonport. nice quaint little town with nice looking houses. Manyak syok loh...

snap shot...

next day, woke up early and checked out fron the hostel and drove to Rotorua. Stopped by huka falls and a freaky place called craters of the moon. then checked in into rotorua yha.

Huka Falls...

Craters of the moon...
next day, went to the wai-o-tapu thermal park and see the 'geological wonders'.

wai-o-tapu...

after wai-o-tapu stopped by the mud pool and then drive back to auckland. More jalan jalan...

next day, take plane and fly to christchurch. at christchurch, picked up the rental car and head to the west coast through arthur's pass. stayed a night at arthur's pass. Too bad it was raining quite heavily, so cannot do anything. just stayed indoors.

Next day, just left early and drove down. first to greymouth and then took a detour to punakaiki (sounds like a vulgar word) to see the interestiung formation called the pancake rocks.

punakaiki, i still have problem mentioning this name with a straight face...

pancake rocks, look more like layer cake to me...

then drive back to greymouth and then on to franz josef. reached there in the evening, but since it is still bright, hiked into the galcier valley. went all the way to the terminal face. wah! technical term loh. but basically it just means the point when the glacier ends.

franz josef... Franz jo's terminal face...
after franz josef hike, went back to the cheery yha hostel. it rained the whole day the next day. so cannot do anything - again. Wanna check out fox glacier also cannot, drive to lake mattheson also didn't see anything, but all is not lost, mrs webster's ingenuity ensures that we were entertained.

i think for now cukup oredi lah. will write some more next time. maybe will write a day to day journal thing when i have more time.