Today we are going a few places before checking in at Valleyviews Glamping.
These places are a comfortable drive of about 30 minutes to 1 hour, and time passes very fast as compared to previous road trips where it can go up to 3 hours. Even Yuanze can tell the difference and told us that he prefers it this way.
We check out of our Airbnb and proceed to our first destination, NZ Alpine Lavender. We thought we could see a sea of purple but unfortunately the lavender is not in full bloom. Nevertheless we spent quite some time here eating the super delicious vanilla ice cream with lavender bits and drinking hot ginger honey lemon tea, as well as taking photos.
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| That's the delicious vanilla ice cream |
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| Weather was still quite cold and Yuanze still can wear slippers |
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| This Yuanze take photos really got his own style |
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| This is the purple lavender that we can see |
Next we drove to Twizel. Found this Jake's Hardware shop that sells toys with very good reviews so we let the kids choose a toy there.
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Yuanze posing with the chicken replica outside the shop
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Was supposed to eat lunch at Jasmine Thai Restaurant, and so sway it has to close during the lunch hour due to some emergency situation. So we randomly walked into this cafe called Mint Folk & Co because Yuanze told us he likes this place. I went to order the food and omg, the food was really good! Service was very good as well. I went to google maps to see their reviews, omg is 4.8 out of 5. What a gem!
The French toast especially, so so good!
We received an update from Wellington baggage office, saying that our luggage will reach Wellington today from Sydney airport, and they will try their very best to send us the luggage tonight but cannot guarantee as there are many luggage as well. I told them to send the luggage on the flight that we are taking from Auckland to Singapore as we are nearing the end of our trip. Honestly we are able to survive this long because the Airbnb at Kaikoura and Tekapo has washing machine and dryer. Therefore, pro tip: Choose Airbnb that has washing machine and dryer, you also no need to pack that many clothes for your trip.
Next destination is High Country Salmon, a salmon farm that has a cafe specializing in salmon dishes. The kids had a fun time feeding the salmon.
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| Yuanze feeding the salmon and the ducks. |
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| Fresh salmon sashimi |
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| Yuanyi keep looking intensely at the salmon sashimi and his eyes literally follow the sashimi from the tray to my mouth. |
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| This is what I meant hahahahahaha. |
And finally, to Valleyviews Glamping, that is 1 hour drive from High Country Salmon.
We were blessed with very good weather from Day 1 to Day 7, and so unfortunately for today, it was raining non stop at Kurau. The temperature dropped to 5 degrees Celsius at night, and it was so so cold. We slept with our jackets, pants and socks, and under many layers of blankets. Darling and I were so worried for the kids. But thank god we all survived. The kids definitely become more resilient after this.
But overall, Valleyviews Glamping was a good experience, it will be perfect if it never rain. The dome is also very pretty. At night when is dark, the fairy lights are turned on, is really magical.
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| This is our dome, Station Peak dome, that is the largest dome, can sleep 4 pax and has an ensuite bathroom, and the only dome that has bathtubs outside. |
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| Toilet bowl has no flushing system. There is a box of composites beside the toilet bowl, if we do our big business, we just scoop the composite and put on top of the poop and the smell will go away. Of course we do not dare to try. Hahahahaha. |
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| This two chaps really so brave to try the bath tubs when it was still drizzling and the weather was really cold. #YOLO |
Dinner was self prepared by us, we stopped by at the Foursquare supermarket at Twizel to buy some food.
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| Our dinner! Nutritious with proteins and veggies! |
At night we spent the coldest night ever throughout our whole trip, with no heater. We can only make do with hot water bottles.
But it was one hell of an experience. If I have the chance, I will want to come here again, but only when the temperature is warmer.
So this is our second last night of the trip. Tomorrow we are driving up to Christchurch where we spend our final night in NZ. I am proud to say, we survived this whole trip without our check-in luggage.
But I am sad to say, right until now that is 16 Dec, we still have not get back our luggage. OMG this is totally unacceptable.
