OUR RECENT VISIT TO AUSTRALIA AND NEWZEALAND

After the recent travel to Australia and New Zealand, we thought of sharing our experience across the various countries and cities that we have visited.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. You will see from a perspective of retired Indian couple from New Delhi!!

OUR RECENT VISIT TO AUSTRALIA AND NEWZEALAND
We in a group of six closely knit family decided to explore Australia and New Zealand. we planned it out about three months in advance by engaging a travel agent namely Make my Travel India Pvt Ltd who arranged our itinerary to visit Sydney and Cairns in Australia and Christchurch, Queenstown, Milford and Auckland in New Zealand. We started on 11th December 2019 and return on 25th December 2019. It was a wonderful experience. We give description of each place with some photographs;

Sydney: it is one of the beautiful cities of Australia. The downtown is like Manhattan of New York City but smaller in size. Our hotel Ibis was centrally located. The main attraction were walk on the King Street wharf, three hours cruise with dinner, harbour Bridge, Darling harbour, and opera house.
Next day we went to the city tour in a bus and took many photographs of beaches, opera House and other places.
Next day morning we were supposed to fly to Cairns
but unfortunately the flight was cancelled and we were in a Great soup what to do. We approached our travel agent who booked us in another flight with a heavy cost but we have to make our trip successful and went by the other flight.

Cairns: At Cairns we went in a cruise to see the great barrier reef in Green Island. Lot many activities were found there we saw people going down in the sea snorkaling and watching the fish moving around them in coral reefs. We also went in a submarine and saw inside the water the coral reef so closely and in a very big area which took us one hour trip. it was the most beautiful experience we have observed.

Christchurch : The next day we have to take the flight to Christchurch in New Zealand the flight was changed at Brisbane the major hub for the change of flights in Australia.
In New Zealand we have our private vehicle which remained with us for all our visit in New Zealand. On reaching Christchurch we faced a little problem at the customs as you are aware that Indians carry food with them and taking any kind of green food is prohibited in New Zealand. It took us about 45 minutes to get our luggage cleared. We were told that the ChristChurch is the second largest city in New Zealand after Auckland. The population wise it was only 4 lacs. We saw Hegley park which was one of the biggest park of the world, botanical Gardens, Canterbury University, The other places we visited were the beautiful shopping centres and Indian restaurants.

Queenstown: We then went by road to Queenstown via the Mount Cook which was the highest mountain in New Zealand. The entire 9 hours journey way was very beautiful, scenic and smooth. It was all cloudy and visibility to Mount Cook was very poor. We reached Queenstown in the night and we had our dinner in Indian restaurant.

Milford: The next day we went to Milford, it was about four hours journey to that beautiful sight. On the way we saw many lakes including a mirror Lake. Reaching Milford we took a cruise which took us in the sea surrounded by snow peak hills. It was such a beautiful site and the water falls were visible at so many places, our boat also went under the waterfall and we were all wet in water. We had our lunch in the boat returned to our hotel in the evening.

Queenstown: Our hotel namely Hartland hotel was on the lakeside and our rooms were located viewing the lake. it was indeed a beautiful site when we wake up in the morning and see the lake surrounded by hills and Sunrising.
The next day we had a city tour. The city was very beautiful with a population of about two lakhs. We had a visit to Arrow town and shopping centres. We also saw the gondola ride but did not ride as we all had a good experience of going in cable cars.
Our driver in Christchurch Milford and Queenstown was an Indian young man who was studying in MBA there, it was easy for us to communicate with him.

Auckland: Next day we reached Auckland the biggest city in New Zealand having a population of about 20 lakhs. Here also our driver was an Indian who took us to a beach, the volcano site the Franklin Street in which we see the Christmas lights all around the street. We also saw the New Zealand National Stadium Aden Park. We then went to the hotel. The hotel was run by Indian people and it was like an apartment hotel having all kitchen facilities including washing machine. The next day we went to see the Skytower which is more than 400 feet high having a restaurant on the top and two more stories to watch from the window panes the entire city at 360 deg. On one of the top floors there was a glass floor on which one can move, it was very frightening if we see below from the glass floor.
Auckland is divided into two parts by backwater sea that is north and south. The city is very beautiful having lot many parks, shopping complexes and beautiful buildings. There was a burger shop which was always crowded we also stood in queue and bought the burger which was found tasty.