Revisiting after a while - New Zealand

Considering how I barely had any internet access during the entire duration of my New Zealand trip and struggled to go to all the places I wanted to in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, it ends up that I’ll be back documenting a bit.

Hiking wise, New Zealand was by far my favorite destination yet, although driving through New Zealand is something else altogether. If you’ve decided to take the rental car through New Zealand, be prepared for winding roads and steep inclines/declines especially in the South Island. That means do your best to get a car with the appropriate engine and power to travel rough terrains.

Photography wise, I couldn’t hold myself back from taking all the photos - themed and otherwise. The galleries are displayed below as previews, but can be found on separate links under the Photo Galleries section as well.

New Zealand - World of Fungi

Noticing a significant amount of interesting fungi during my hikes, I also decided to dedicate an entire album to just the interesting mushrooms I’ve found.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Queenstown Hill

• Milford Sound

• Fox Glacier

• Lake Matheson

Queenstown

Since my first experience with New Zealand was through Queenstown and I spent the most time in Queenstown during my South Island adventures, I ended up with many more pictures of Queenstown than anywhere else.

South Island

If you’re feeling especially adventurous and have no fear of driving in difficult terrains (i.e. steep, tiny mountain roads, sharp angles, long distances), South Island New Zealand is definitely the place for you. Fair warning though - since there are lots of mountains, sites that may seem a 30 minute drive and fairly close together may actually be 4-5 hours away from each other due to the mountains in between. I learned this the hard way when I tried to get from Fox Glacier to Mt. Cook only to find that the locations were not as close as I thought they were. The sites are amazing, and even when it’s rainy, the atmosphere is awe inspiring though in a completely different way.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Milford Sound

• Glenorchy

• Lake Matheson

• Wanaka

North Island

North Island was a significantly easier drive, but beware of road construction. Some locations can only be accessed by one or two paths, which means if there is road construction, it will be nearly impossible to get to or you should expect a 2-12 hour detour. I was lucky on my first night in Wellington, as I was right in time for a local food festival and amazing clear days with stars.

I unfortunately did run into road construction while I was traveling through the North Island and ended up on a 2 hour detour to Auckland and did not end up being able to reach two of the locations that I wanted to visit. I was, however, extremely lucky in that it rained very little while I was on the North Island and I was able to spend many nights on beaches enjoying the stars.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Wellington

• Hobbiton

• Hamilton

• Coromandel

Remainder of the Australia Trip

While these have been edited for some time now, i realized finding a good source of internet while traveling through the Southern Island of New Zealand may be harder than expected. Considering that my last two accommodations only allowed for 200-500 MBs of wifi usage and a majority of the areas that I traveled barely had signal (being in smaller towns in the mountains and all), uploading high definition images was definitely out of the question.

BUT - with all of that said, I can proudly present you the pictures from the rest of my journey in Australia having finally found decent internet in Christchurch.

From Sydney, I moved on to Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Gold Coast, and Brisbane. Unfortunately for me, most of that time was spent driving and trying to avoid the rain, but I was able to get a few nice images when I can:

Out of that, I've composed two Galleries: Blue Mountain & Newcastle and Australia - New Castle to Brisbane:

The galleries are displayed below as previews, but can be found on separate links under the Photo Galleries section as well.

Blue Mountain & Newcastle

While I was enjoying a nice afternoon of conversations at a local cafe in Sydney, Blue Mountain came highly recommended, so I made a stop prior to heading forward to Newcastle. While I did get quite lost due to some in accurate google map location guides and a lack of signal in certain areas of the mountains, I was able to find an extremely beautiful area called Jenolan Caves, where I took a nice walk along the river walk and saw an lyrebird (according to the Australian lady who happened to walk by).

Newcastle, on the other hand, will forever be remembered as the place of the horrid sunburn - where weather channel lied to me on the reality of how cloudy it would be during the day (it was supposed to be cloudy all day with rain in the afternoon. It became extremely sunny less than 30 minutes after I left the house). The beach and walks were absolutely beautiful, so in the end, I did enjoy myself even in horrible pain.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Blue Mountains

• Jenolan Caves

• Newcastle Wharf

• Nobbys Beach

Australia - Newcastle to Brisbane

Newcastle to Brisbane was more than a day's trip, but considering how there was little I can do besides trying to avoid the rain as much as I can, but I was able to stop by some fun place. I had the most fun at Springbrook National Park when it came to pictures - I was lucky enough to run into a most photogenic little lizard and enjoyed trying to find all sorts of fun fungi.

The night I drove into Brisbane, I stayed in a lovely Airbnb (it reminded me of something from a historical novel) where the designer that lived there told me that the best pace to view the sunrise was from Mt. Coot-tha, so I woke up early in the morning to try to catch it and boy was I not disappointed. It was stunning and the pictures do not do it enough justice, so I'd highly recommend it if you're planning to visit Brisbane to see in person.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Springbrook National Park

• Gold Coast

• Mt Coot-tha

I may or may not be in New Zealand now...

As of late afternoon on February 28, I've arrived in New Zealand instead. I realized for the second time that it's never an good idea to trust the weather channel outside of America once I got here (even in the States, its could be inaccurate a lot of the times). I have run into situations where my weather app would tell me that it is raining or cloudy outside currently, only to find the sun blasting down on me as I go out the door. It was probably the cause of my first sunburn (where I went outside thinking I was safe from the sun due to the clouds, only to find that the day was not cloudy, but with very much sunshine). BUT! I learned my lesson and know now to always bring sunblock, no matter what the weather apps tell me.

So thus, I'm in New Zealand, about to drive off in my rental car tomorrow morning, and hoping that my sunburn do not get any worse, and that there won't be too much rain coming up in the coming weeks while I'm here.

• February 28:Fly into Queenstown, New Zealand
• March 1-3: Explore Queenstown
  • March 1: Explore the Queenstown Mall area, Queenstown Garden trails
  • March 2: Explore the Queenstown Market and Climb the Queenstown hill and follow the Queenstown Hill Trail
  • March 3: Just chill at Cafes and drive off to Te Anau
• March 4: Explore Milford Sound (Day Trip)
• March 5: Explore Glenorchy and Wanaka
• March 6: Drive to Fox Glacier/Mt. Cook
• March 7-9: Drive to Christchurch and explore Christchurch
  • visit the Wildlife Reserve and all the fun buildings!
• March 10: explore Nelson, head to Wellington
• March 11-12: explore Wellington
• March 12: Drive to Rotura
• March 13: Hobbitton!!!! Head to 
• March 14: explore Hamilton, Drive to Auckland
• March 15: Day Trip to Coromandel 
• March 16-17: Explore Auckland

Below is a visual indication of my travels, and the locations and dates I'm expecting for my travels. I still need to get my ticket for my visit to Hobbiton, but at least I bought my ferry ticket across the islands!

Sydney - Photo Albums

This is long overdue, but being limited on what I can do due to a horrid sunburn (really an excuse although I was in a lot of pain and felt like an overgrown lizard) and unstable internet, I am finally able to settle down and sort through the plethora of photos I've accumulated while exploring Sydney.

Considering just how many places I explored in Sydney, the photos have been divided out into 2 photo galleries: Sydney - The City and Sydney - The Beaches.

The galleries are displayed below as previews, but can be found on separate links under the Photo Galleries section as well.

El Alamein Fountain

Bin Birds of the Fountain

Kings Cross Sign

Sydney - The City:

Sydney - The City, in someways, is more of an obsession with street-signs and anything else I happened to have caught while obsessing over said street signs, displaying all the vibrance of the city as i originally experienced it.

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Kings Cross Market
• Central Park Mall
• Central Station
• Glebe Point Road
• Angel Place Birdcages
• Newtown
• Circular Quay

Sydney - The Beaches:

There's not much I can say about the beaches of Sydney besides that they're absolutely gorgeous - and to go at sunrise and try to avoid a sunburn (please put on sunscreen even if it is cloudy -  I learned my lessons that clouds cannot be depended on. 

Locations in this gallery include those below and surrounding areas:

• Manly Beach Ferry
• Manly Beach
• Coogee Beach
• Bondi Beach

Australia Timeline Breakdown

Reliable internet is hard to come by when traveling - as I later learned - and thus, after a week in Australia, time to break down what exactly my plan is for my South East Coast Roadtrip:

• February 13-15th:
  • Spending a lovely time on the airplane to my destination: Sydney
• February 15-19th: Explore Sydney - Staying at Central Station
  • • Feb 15: Arrive, settle in, visited Darling Harbor, Westfield Mall, and Chinatown
    • Feb 16: Manly/Shelly/Collins Beach (also spend a nice evening eating and enjoying the Circular Quay displays with a friend)
    • Feb 17: All the Markets: Haymarket, Paddington Market, Glebe Market, Kings Cross Market
    • Feb 18: Bondi-Coogee walk/Beaches. Relaxing afternoon at Newtown - visit some cafes
    • Feb 19: Royal Botanical Garden, Queen Victoria's Building, the Rocks
• February 20th: Pick up rental car, Blue Mountains, head to Newcastle
• February 21st: Explore Newcastle - Nobby's Beach, Memorial Walk
• February 22nd: Head to Worimi National Park and Port Macquarie
• February 23rd: Explore Bindarri National Park, Coff's harbor, stay in Yamda
• February 24th: Byron Bay day trip, stay in Gold Coast
• February 25th: Explore Gold Coast, evening drive to Brisbane
• February 26-28th: Explore Brisbane
  • Details to be determined.

Below is a map of the route of the roadtrip for visual reference: