Happy Mick: New Zealand Day 4 : Lake Pukaki, Base of Mount Cook, The Church of the Good Shepherd and my virgin experience staying in a backpackers

1/11/2016 Tuesday

Right after breakfast and packed our stuffs into Ryn GYK, we started our journey to Lake Pukaki which took us about 3 hours from Christchurch. Long journey and long post ahead.

Jou stopped by Lincoln University to go to her lab to take something. It was indeed a big and famous university for agriculture and maybe I should have continue with my master in agrotechnology here and I would have be the one to fetch Jou here instead. If and only if, the road not taken.

After Jou got her stuffs, we continued our journey and the whole journey basically looked like this.

And this.

As advertised in Fernleaf milk powder

And of course not forgetting the important animal in New Zealand.

Mekkkkk mekkk

And the scenic view.

Gorgeous view of the Southern Alps along our journey.

The whole road belongs to us? Oh by the way, spot the dead insect on the windscreen HEHE

And finally after 3 hours of driving, we finally arrived at our first destination.

We stopped here for our lunch and toilet break. With New Zealand clean natural flowing fresh water from the alps, it is no doubt that they are able to produce fresh sashimi.

Which one is better?

After picking a box of 500gram of sashimi and another loose pack of sashimi, we quickly ran out of the shop to pick a nice bench for our lunch picnic.

say HIE to Lake PUkaKI (what a name- if you ignore the KA in hokkien dialect, it will be a vulgar word)

Tadah. Jou brought along the bamboo chopsticks as well. She is so well-prepared.

Ahh this view..too bad too much of clouds but still no complain..

Freshest sashimi by the Lake Pukaki

Jou and her picnic box and guess what she brought along as well..

See how thick it is

See I told you all the preparation for a picnic- avocadoes, crackers, cheese..

Cant wait to dig in but wait, camera eats first. Also my first virgin picnic experience

With all the 'ingredients' prepared by Jou, and tadah again, we managed to make a ...

Sashimi Canape- Cracker, avocadoes, cheese and the main guy there

ITADAKIMASU !

When you are happy you ~~clap your hand,~~ jump your feet off ! It was sunny with 9 degree celsius. Still bearable.

There were a group of tourist when we were having picnic and after hearing their conversation, we asked if they are from Malaysia, and yes bingo, they are from Penang. We chit chat and found out that there were in their late 50s and 60s and they said they should have visited here back 30 years like what I was doing but we told them is is NEVER TOO LATE to travel.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

This is the turquoise canal that had all those king fresh water salmon

After about 1.5hours of sashimi with a view, we continued our journey to Mt Cook Base.

Nature is the art of God

This is the road to ~~heaven~~ Mt Cook Base

Basically we were the only car on the road

coming closer to the base of Mt Cook

Since we were the only car on the road, Jou stopped by the roadside so I can jumped for a photo.

You can see the weather is getting foggier as we head nearer to the base.

2.30pm. Finally arrived at the base of Mt Cook and as usual..

Having hibiscus tea at the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre Tour
Life is such a bliss.

As usual, I jot down every single details I captured here in my small journal.

This is the road if you want to hike Mt Cook. Er, no thanks. I think this view is good enough for me.
Jou said the whole of Mt Cook will be covered in snow and everything will be in white when it is winter and I can easily imagine that.

One with the both of us here

After spending for about 2 hours up there, it is finally to go down the hill to check in into our 1st accomodation of our trip and I am the driver now. Jou needs her beauty rest after driving for more than 5 hours altogether

Fast and furious

My view. I passed my camera to Jou and told her to capture whatever I told her to..including driver's view here

Aiya, why blur one?

At about 515pm, we arrived at our first accomodation of our trip.

Lake Tekapo -Lakefront Lodge Backpackers

Why Lakefront? Very obvious because it has this lake right in front of the backpackers.

When we were planning for this trip, Jou asked if it is okay to stay in a backpackers as our main priority is to travel around and we just need a place to wash up and sleep. I was right OK, COOL i never stay in a backpackers before. So, right after we check in, we were given a key to our room and it has 2 double deckers bed with a heater in it. We took the bed on the left and leave the bed on the right for another stranger. I feel a bit weird and uneasy as we have to share room with a complete stranger but I did not think much, we just left our luggage there, locked the room and continue driving to the Church of the Good Shepherd which was just like 15 minutes away.

Lake Tekapo

Jumping in excitement at Lake Tekapo

After 15 minutes, we arrived at The Church of the Good Shepherd. It was freezing cold as it was so windy.

One picture with the iconic church in Lake Tekapo

Many weddings are held in this beautiful church. If I cannot get married here, please at least let me take a prewedding photo here also can lah.

Say HIE to LUPINS

Jou and beautiful lupins. Too bad we came earlier 2 weeks, otherwise it will be fully bloom

Ok fine, let me just jump in front of the church as a memory will do

After hundreds of photos with the lupins and the church, Jou then drove me to Tekapo Spring. The sky was getting darker and it was estimated to rain on that night. ☹️

Natural hotspring. Too bad I did not dip myself into the pool as I was lazy to change into my swim wear and then change again. Jou told me the last time she dipped herself here, she managed to watched the Milky Way. WHY YOU SO LUCKY?

Drizzling drizzling

PUkaKI again?

Alright, after we left the hotspring, we drove back to our backpackers lodge. To our surprise, there were already 2 big backpackers luggage in the room and I thought, oh there comes our neighbour. While Jou and I were busy arranging our stuffs and taking our towels and clothes to the washroom, KNOCK KNOCK, Jou opened the room and there is this HANDSOME and TALL ANGMOH guy came in and said HELLO. WHAT THE HECK? This is suppose to be a girls room? ! Why is he here?
So many questions running in my head and I was quite stunned while Jou just reacted calmly and even asked where is he from. Ok, he is from UK. I was so shocked until I can't move. WHAT NOW? Are we supposed to sleep in the same room with a guy or two guys? Hello, ~~I don't want to lose my virginity to an angmoh~~ I'm not used sleeping to a guy more over a complete stranger at all.
How ? How? Totally culture shock. Maklumlah, I'm totally a country bumpkin. Never study overseas and witness such 'thing' in a backpackers lodge. After shower, I was completely fine and we went to the kitchen to have our dinner there.

As this is my first time staying in a backpackers, I was also surprised with so many strangers cooking in the same kitchen at the same time. Most of them are caucasian. Only Jou and me and a couple of Koreans there. Most of the caucasian was cooking a real dinner with chicken, side dish, some even have dessert and there is this big group of family/friends, they cooked lasagna. OMG , such a complicated dish and yet they are cooking it in a backpackers?

For us, it was a just simple dinner.

All time favourite instant noodle. Add hot water and wait for 5 minutes. Not forgetting our sashimi from Lake Pukaki earlier as our side dish.This lodge has a living area with so many strangers sitting and doing their own things there. It was raining outside, hence everyone clamped inside here. See the guy behind me, wah..enjoying his reading there with his legs crossed up high.

and wash down all the noodles and sashimi with Rekorderlig cider

This is our room. I slept on the top while Jou slept below me. And that UK Guy slept at the bottom which is like next to Jou. His girlfriend slept on the top. Jou said in the middle of the night, the UK Guy take off his shirt and sleep. I was like WWOWOWOOWOW. Frankly speaking, I did not sleep so well on that night. Maybe because I was in a complete different environment and there is this half naked guy sleeping in the same room. Also the sound insulation system is not good as I kept hearing our neighbours slamming the doors and you can hear them walking up and down. No choice, who ask me to be such a super light sleeper.

The next morning at around 9am, we checked out from this memorable backpackers lodge.

We spent some time taking photos outside the lodge

Bye Lake Tekapo- Lakefront Lodge Backpackers

I can't stop thanking Jou for giving me such a virgin experience staying in a backpackers. Maybe all these while I have been taking things for granted as I always stay in a hotel everytime I travel for leisure; have my own single bed and my own toilet. This is just one of the beginning of staying in a backpackers. Can't believe this is totally an eye opening for me.
Jou said she made a mistake by not asking for a all-girls lodge, but still, if she did ask for it, I will not have such a memorable stay in my whole life right? I never blame her at all. I just can't thank her enough until today while I am typing this (15/4/2018) now.

Recommended to those who would like to experience staying in a backpackers and those who do not mind sleeping with strangers.

Next post will be our journey from Lake Tekapo to Queentowns which took us 3 hours where we managed to stop 10 times for 10 different experiences. Stay tuned for my next post!

Discover the rest of my New Zealand Trip as follow :

New Zealand Day 15 : End of New Zealand Trip
New Zealand Day 14 : Last Day in Christchurch and Scared Scriptless
New Zealand Day 13 : Pancakes Rocks and Blowholes

New Zealand Day 12: Abel Tasman

New Zealand Day 11 : Vineyards at Marlborough , Quick Stop at Picton and Motueka

New Zealand Day 10 : Kaikoura and Blenheim

New Zealand Day 9 : Kayaking in the Avon River, Mitchell's Track and Sumner Beach