Work Hard Travel Often #1 (2weeks in New Zealand)
What is pictures without stories? It will still tell something, but it could be meaningless for many, I believe.
So this is my first time travel abroad by myself I guess (beside living in Sydney — Australia) and beside solo travel around Australia by myself which I did several times (and twas awesome btw!). I have been exploring this kangaroo & koala’s country big cities, such as; Melbourne, Perth, and Tasmania. Of course Australia is beautiful place to explore, especially it’s food, places, and people.
But let me tell you this; New Zealand NATURE is just better than Australia (haha sorry not sorry guys, I still love-chu all Oz ppl tho!). Well, I guess even Aussies agree with that, because many of them travel to NZ to explore outstanding nature as well! Trust me, on my Contiki NZ bus, majority of the people is from many parts of Australia haha!
Anyway, let me tell you, what make my solo experience travel to NZ is really extra-ordinary.
- Rainbows! Lot of em’. When I literally arrived in NZ, this country welcome me with rainbow in the Airport — huge rainbow, which is so beautiful, it makes my arrival feels 10x more special. But! I found out, rainbows in NZ is very common things. Almost everyday, I sees rainbow almost everywhere! And it came in many forms; big, small, close, or far-away. This is very cool I think! As this is nature and not humans’ made it just make me overwhelmed. In this case, I always remember ‘The Promises’ and it made my hearts full.
2. I get my ‘me time’. I dont know with you guys, but my work is full of working with a lot of people and a lot of communications, besides of cooking. In a day I maybe could communicate with around 30+ team members included BOH & FOH. And my chef job is like all day communicating — it’s so full on! The venues I work & worked with is definitely not small venue and it’s just crazy busy most of the time. As the middle management senior team member, it is A LOT to deal with with massive working loads and crazy long hours. So definitely I really enjoy my ‘me time’ not communicating with a lot of people & not caring so much of the world! As I also followed Contiki group, they might think I was an anti-social and not really fun person, but guess what? I am just an ordinary young human being, that really hustling & giving my most energies at work, and all I wanna do is living my life at my time off — whether you like me or not.
3. I get my social time with pretty much safe strangers! Yes, I follow Contiki group. I decided to follow this group less than a week before my departure to NZ. Like I think I was fine going by myself, but my friends & family just told me to find a travelling group. So I did! Well, I would say it’s a better decision rather than you travel alone. You gain friends and lot of travelling, accommodations, and included & additional activities are scheduled — so it’s really saved you from many travelling headaches. Not under-estimating your skill on creating outstanding itinerary; but just a little recommendation, if you ever think travel abroad alone without friend(s), it is always better in group, any of travel group — moneywise, yes it is more expensive somehow, but securitywise you’ll be way more safe than travel alone. You always can find more money, but you only have one life! Really think about it..
4. The crazy activities!!! This is my favourite part. I just realised, I am so behind on life-experiences. I never done this sort of things before. I only did the safe activities my whole life before this trip because of my parents always worried about anything and most likely say no to hardcore experiences hahaha. But as I grew up and I independently support myself — I am free to do anything!!! Yesss! In a responsible and not dumb way I suppose ha! So I made it to do several things for the first time in life (kayak, rafting, jet-boat, gondola ride) and intend to do it again and take it to the next level to do more experiences on my next trip!
5. NATURE. I think I did said about this before about NZ, especially on the introduction bits. And of course this is my very favourite part, from many others that excites me so much from this trip. So, I travel from North Island to South Island (I travel more on North, but I also seen a lot in South). I travelled with Contiki bus most of it, ferry to cross over North to South, and NZ’s local bus to travel from Christchurch to Queenstown, also travel all the way down to Milford Sounds with bus. The scenery is just insane! I did see so much hills and valleys, cliffs, oceans, lake, waterfalls, mountains, beautiful skies, and sheeps+cows+lamb of course hahaha, also snow! Etc.. Anyway, it was incredible sceneries, cant really explained by words or pictures, you gotta experience it.
6. Local peoples and their native ‘hangi food’. This is the coolest part and the delicious part I guess (both food and the people HAHA!). For real, there is something very beautiful, masculin, yet exotic about this culture. And i love love love their local stories. You should see the video of Maori culture or even watch Moana — super duper cool. Speechless. Sexy. Addictive. Also the ‘hangi food’ is bloody delicious!!! You see, this guys are very proud of what they are doing, conserve their beautiful culture and you just think; this is absolutely great stuff! I also make lot of new friends from local NZ people — and they’re sooo nice btw! Won’t forget their awesomeness and this trip would never be the same without those locals!
7. Museums! I am a sucker for museums, but I think in NZ beside their exposing their local artists and their creativities, they also exposing their cultures, past stories, and diversity. I think it is a very fundamental parts of museum — to educate people; whether locals or internationals. We as a current generation; we need to be aware with what happened in the past, for a better current situation, and a progress for a better future. Am I right?! So I love the way they package their museums in an fun & awesome exhibitions. I think its just phenomenal, although I am not local, it opened my eyes, encourages me to be better individual and NZ’s museums beside their beautiful buildings are definitely also a delightful experience to be remembered.
8. Milford Sounds. Okay, this is my personal favourite trip. Some would agree, some would not. Just because; some people think it’s just a beautiful ocean view with glacier cliffs from a ferry and nothing special about it. Guess what?! For me this place is just magical, extra-ordinary, and so damn beautiful! Although I need to sit on 8–10 hours bus from Queenstown, lot of fogs + rains view; but eventually on a road an hour before we get into the ferry, we experienced snow! Also the rain of snow! That was my 1st snow experience on my entire life and it was so amazing. I asked the locals if this common, and they said it’s not, they even waited for years to experience snow again! And I was thinking — how lucky! How blessed! Of course I took a lot of pictures, tried stupidly catching snows and tried to catch it from the sky to my mouth haha! I just figured; snow do melts! Anyways, back to Milford Sounds — our bus was great, our bus driver/tour guide was a NZ white lady that is super cool, funny, nice & knowledgeable, and the ferry was awesome as well (we spent 2 hours in oceans seeing outstanding sceneries & highlights of Milford Sounds). Not seeing rainbows this time, but we saw a lot of magnificent glacier cliffs, mountains, waterfalls, fog, and seals! Also didn’t see penguins, dolphins, and whales this time in here — but it was not reducing the beauty of this place itself. FYI, Milford Sounds just claimed as 8th Wonder of the World, y’all! So if you ever interested to visit this place, don’t forget bring your raincoat guys! This is the wettest inhabited place in New Zealand, and one of the wettest places in the world! It’s raining all the time and I can assure you, you’ll get wet!
For more NZ journey info; I’ll post it scheduled on my Instagram account; @keziajk_
Either way for curiosity or insight; feel free to see my Instagram acc or you could message me here / email me on my email address; kezia.kristel@gmail.com
Kish.