Waking up and checked our camera after it has dried overnight, all the buttons worked!!! BUT….the shutter release button did not urg! We pre-booked a half day cruise to the Whitehaven Beach; Australia’s #1 beach with Viator.com and since we did not have an operating DSLR camera, we relied on Jason’s Samsung Galaxy Edge 6+.…
The Great Barrier Reef, here we come! The 2 hours journey from Hamilton Island to Hardy Reef where Cruise Whitsundays’ pontoon located was organized, informative, and the ride wasn’t too shaky but I took the seasick pill just in case. The ship was a modern high-speed catamaran that fit I would say more than 200…
We couldn’t wait to leave Sydney but Sydney looking from the plane was pretty. I have to say after Qantas’ friendly staff who helped us to sort out with the AA delay, that left a great impression on me. On the flight ~2 hours flight to Hamilton Island, I wasn’t expecting in-flight food so we bought…
Please do not hate me for complaining about having to spend Christmas over in Sydney, Australia…..I know it might be many people’s bucket list to spend Christmas in Sydney…and I am complaining about it? Hear my story first….. The Great Barrier Reef has been on my bucket list for years but it is probably the…
Our last stop of our 2 weeks New Zealand adventure: Queenstown 🙂 We took the Crown Range Rd again to get back to Queenstown from Wanaka and what a huge difference it made on a sunny vs cloudy day! It was so foggy that we couldn’t see the mountains and lake on the background: We reached…
At first, I was planning 2 nights in Te Anau but once I saw photos of Lake Wanana, I decided to re-adjust my plan so I can stay at Lake Wanaka for 1 night. It was a 3 hours drive from Te Anau to Lake Wanaka was a very scenic one, so far the most…
The drive from Dunedin to Te Anau took almost 4 hours and when we got to Lakeside Motel, I went into the reception to check in, got our key and a map of the drive to Milford Sound. It was one of the few times I stayed at motels since not much choices in Te Anau, the…
Our New Zealand South Island adventure continued to Dunedin; the drive from Lake Tekapo to Dunedin was around 4 hours and we stopped in Oamaru when we passed by many Asian restaurants – it reminded us lunch time! We saw a big Thai food sign and found parking right near the entrance of Bangkok Recipe Oamaru. We…
With less than 4 hours of sleep to catch our early morning flight at 7:10 AM to Queenstown arrived at 9:00 AM, we were tired but once we stepped out the airport, the fresh mountain air woke us up! We gave Apex Car Rental a call and they sent their shuttle over to pick us…
Our first “real” New Zealand adventure started with a side trip from Auckland to the colorful geothermal valley of Rotorua. Early in the morning, we checked out the hotel and paid our $30 NZD internet bill for 2 days (yikes) and lugged our luggage up the hill to Europcar. The office just opened but a…
MissVacation 