[dave7377]

The return journey after an eventful holiday always appears to be a long one. Last 14 days have been filled with loads of fun as we took our annual holidays to New Zealand. After two consecutive trips to Europe in last two years another overseas trip was nowhere on the mind and wallet. But reading newspaper one fine morning i chanced upon the emirates global sale offer where return fares to almost all destinations were close to 40 percent less than usual. Seed had been planted for planning another holiday. After the most difficult part of convincing the wife for another overseas trip was over, rest of the planning was not much of a task.

PLANNING

Destination was not much difficult to choose as after Europe, NewZealand was always on our agenda. And we wanted to visit New Zealand in its most beautiful season- Autumn. Tickets were booked in January for travel in second week of April, Visa formalities were over by January end, and then started the agonizing wait till April. Since leave was always a constraint, we could only take out two weeks for this trip and that meant only one of the island was possible and we chose the South Island.
After pouring over the net, various forums, lonely planet New Zealand book, we chalked out our itinerary like this
Day 1 Arrive in Christchurch – Pick up the rental car
Day 2 Drive to lake Tekapo, Night at lake Tekapo Scenic resort
Day 3 Drive to Mount Cook National park, overnight at twizel
Day 4 Lake Ohau, Lake Benmore & Twizel area, over night at Twizel
Day 5 Drive to Queenstown
Day 6 Queenstown
Day 7 Queenstwon or Wanaka
Day 8 Wanaka
Day 9 Drive to Franzjosef
Day 10 Drive to Nelson region
Day 11 Abe Tasman National park
Day 12 Drive back to Christchurch
Day 13 First half Christchurch city and board flight back home at 1600 hrs




Hotel booking for the first day and last day was done in advance and for rest other days i had finalised the various hotels and had sent them a mail about tentative booking. Since April was not the prime tourist season, hotel booking was not very difficult till the last minute. Car rental was a diffuclt choice and here i went with the most recommended agency on Trip Advisor- Apex Car rentals and retrospectively i must say i am not disappointed with the choice. They were thoroughly professional, always responded to mails immediately and provided accurate information. Had no problem with the Toyota camry i had hired from them for the entire period. Cost of hiring for 12 days with full insurance (Zero excess) came out to be 1050 NZ$.
As the dates of travel came near we had finished our shopping for some woollens and different food items we intended to carry like ready to eat meals etc etc. One thing to be kept in mind that one needs to declare all these food items in passenger entry card as you land into NZ as they have a strict biosecurity policy.
So finally after all the planning, packing, making checklist, re checking the checklist, the day of travel finally arrived and we arrived in Mumbai on 12th April for our flight on 13th April early morning. Since our tickets were booked in emirates, it meant travelling first 3hrs in opposite direction to Dubai and then to Christchurch via Sydney.

Flight to Dubai was a Boeing 777-300ER, which was a nice plane with 10” wide ICE and i must say Emirates has one of the best ICE system today amongst all airlines. Food was nice by our standards and three hours just went by. Our next leg was Dubai Sydney non stop in Airbus A380-800 and wow what a plane it was. One of the most silent cabin i had ever flown. Leg room was also much better compared to 777. Though it was a 13 hour flight, with all the movies, games and music loaded in the ICE, journey passed off smoothly and we landed in Sydney on 0600hrs on 14th April and arrived in Christchurch same day at 1400hrs local time.

I was keeping my fingers crossed for my luggage as on previous trip one piece of luggage didn’t arrived but this time as soon as i cleared my immigration and went to baggage carousel my bags were already there. After claiming the luggage we went through bio security check where they checked all food items and after getting satisfied, we were out of the airport by 1430hrs. Called up my hotel and they were there to pick me up in 5 minutes as hotel was quite close to airport.
After settling in our hotel room which was a two bedroom apartment, i picked up the car and went to supermarket for some shopping. After an early dinner we finally called it a day.

15th April 2012 Christchurch to Lake Tekapo

I got up early at around six and went for a walk to nearby park to capture some autumn pictures of Christchurch.





After breakfast at around 1030 hrs we left for Lake Tekapo. Drive through tekapo was through Cantebury plains and it was a non eventful drive with minimum stop for pictures.





We reached Tekapo at around 1400hrs. Our resort was located right on the lakeside and had wonderful views of the lake.






Light was just perfect for photography and after having our lunch we went exploring lake tekapo and then lake tekapo scenic reserve.


























By the time we finished with the reserve we thought of going till Mt John observatory only to find that road is closed after 1700hrs and we have to come back next morning at 0900hrs. So went went exploring Lake Alexendrina and Lake Mcgregor. Fading light provided some excellent photo opportunities.
















So we came back to our resort and after an early dinner at 1900 hrs we called it a day but not before checking out next day weather report on New Zealand primetime news.

[dave7377]

Day 2:16th April 2012 Lake Tekapo - Mount Cook

Day started with a cloudy start but soon with sun up on the horizon the clouds disappeared in no time.


I walked along the lakeside till Church of Good Shepherd and the vistas rewarded me with these pictures.










Last view of the lake from our room

After finishing the morning schedule of photography i went back to our resort, had breakfast and left for Mount Cook visiting Mt John observatory enroute. Here are some of the pictures of Lake Alexendrina from Mt John.


By the time we could leave Mt john and reach the first scenic lookout of Lake Pukaki and Mt Cook, sun was right above my head and so next set of pictures of Lake Pukaki and Mt Cook are not very inspiring but believe me the Lake with backdrop of Mt Cook looks much more beautiful than my pictures depict here.

[manmohanmaan]

Hey Dave, Superb Holiday, I can imagine how a return journey leaving all this behind must have weighed on you. Simply lovely the scenery and equally good pictures. Please post a few of your resort too. However what I love the most is 'NOT ANOTHER PERSON IN SIGHT' wow. The solitude and in such beauty !!! Looking forward to more updates.
Regards,
Manmohan.

[pvgeorge]

For any vacationes planning a trip to NZ,
NZ South island is beautiful compared to north one. The place is something out of movie sets. planning a trip in a month to south island ( South of south island) basing the trips from Queenstown.
adventure sports like Bungee, Sky dive, jet boat, white water are recommended
if some one is planning a trip to the north, the beach areas of Bay of islands, Coromandal and the thermal area of Rotorua are recommended. the beaches are too shallow and literally can be yours with no one else around.

[SPIKE ARRESTOR]

Dave- mind blowing pics. Subscribed to this thread just to see the travelog pics, among the best I have seen on this forum so far. Can you please share about the photographs, equipment, settings, processing etc.? Thanks !

Rating this thread 5 stars.

Spike

[dave7377]

Originally Posted by manmohanmaan

Hey Dave, Superb Holiday, I can imagine how a return journey leaving all this behind must have weighed on you. Simply lovely the scenery and equally good pictures. Please post a few of your resort too. However what I love the most is 'NOT ANOTHER PERSON IN SIGHT' wow. The solitude and in such beauty !!! Looking forward to more updates.
Regards,
Manmohan.

Thanks Manmohan. Yeah New Zealand is beautiful and in Autumn there are less tourist compared to summers. Later in my posts you can see pristine blue beaches of abel tasman national park with no one in sight. it was like whole beach to myself.

Originally Posted by pvgeorge

For any vacationes planning a trip to NZ,
NZ South island is beautiful compared to north one. The place is something out of movie sets. planning a trip in a month to south island ( South of south island) basing the trips from Queenstown.
adventure sports like Bungee, Sky dive, jet boat, white water are recommended
if some one is planning a trip to the north, the beach areas of Bay of islands, Coromandal and the thermal area of Rotorua are recommended. the beaches are too shallow and literally can be yours with no one else around.

Yeah Geroge, South Island is more scenic, though north has some equally scenic spots like Mt Taranaki, and ofcourse Bay of plenty, plus the bigger cities of auckland, wellington. Even south island had good beaches in the abel tasman national park.

Originally Posted by SPIKE ARRESTOR

Dave- mind blowing pics. Subscribed to this thread just to see the travelog pics, among the best I have seen on this forum so far. Can you please share about the photographs, equipment, settings, processing etc.? Thanks !

Rating this thread 5 stars.

Spike

Thanks buddy. appreciate it. Well New Zealand has beautiful landscape and it autumn it is very colorful and thats what is reflecting in pictures. havent done much to it post processing.Using Canon EOS500D, with 17-40 f/4 lens, shhoting in RAW and converting in Canon DPP. Setting are mostly at f/8 or f/9 with appropriate shutter speed and ISO 100.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by dave7377

Thanks buddy. appreciate it. Well New Zealand has beautiful landscape and it autumn it is very colorful and thats what is reflecting in pictures. havent done much to it post processing.Using Canon EOS500D, with 17-40 f/4 lens, shhoting in RAW and converting in Canon DPP. Setting are mostly at f/8 or f/9 with appropriate shutter speed and ISO 100.

Beautiful photographs! Each one is a post card and a keeper. Even I wanted to ask the question which @spike asked.

The 17-40 should have given you a brilliant performance as is evident from what you have posted. Your settings are an ideal recipe for a perfect landscape capture. Waiting to see more!

[ecclipse78]

Thanks for sharing !

My wife and I spent almost 4 weeks in NZ after we got married. Neither of us wanted to come back.

You can go from the beaches to the mountains in under an hr.

I love this country and hope to retire here someday.

[neel385]

Nice pics Dave! Are the pics "as shot" or processed? Anyways, great pics!!

[mayankjha1806]

Wonderful pictures, how did you took them, all of them have some sort of 3D effect on the sides. Is it something to go with processing after taking them?

Awaiting more details and pictures to follow.

[dave7377]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Wonderful pictures, how did you took them, all of them have some sort of 3D effect on the sides. Is it something to go with processing after taking them?

Awaiting more details and pictures to follow.

Thanks Mayank. The 3d effect is like adding borders in post processing.

[Fauji]

Dave,

WOW is the word!!! Wonderful pictures and your New Zealand story seems very interesting indeed. Waiting for the detailed information on the itenary you have mentioned. Keep it coming and share your experinces in NZ.

Yes, i too will go with five stars.

[amit_3306]

Amazing photos. New Zealand looks real inviting.
Thanks for sharing all the info.

[Figopian]

Amazing, beautiful, wow, etc. are mere words and cannot explain the beauty in those pictures. I am sure seeing this would have been an experience of lifetime.

I have yet to start reading this thread but just those snaps made my day! Thanks for sharing !!

Awaiting some more pics

[Durango Dude]

@Dave: You must have had a great time in "Picture Perfect" NZ. Thanks for the great pics.