2017 May 12: From Greymouth, via Frenz Josef and Fox Galacier to Queenstown

A clearer view of the environment and the caravan we stayed over night. Thank to the host letting us sharing their hall, which has large glass door facing the green, what a great living environment.

  

View of another caravan in the Bush

This is the Caravan we stayed in

Our Host's house withlarge glass door facing the green

The garden outside the host's house

Leaving home stayed and drive to Shanty Town. This is a town constructed in the 1970s with 30 re-created historical building. It will provide a feel of the 19th century Gold-mining town. On arrival, we were too early and the attraction was not opened yet. This is only planned to be an add-on and thus we decide to continue our journey without entering it. If you are interested, this will be the link thatt you can check out on your tour plan.

Main Gate of the Shanty Town 

As we drove along, the scenery was beautiful, but there are not many places that we can stop to take picture. This normally happen when we copme close to farm side or sometimes just by the entrance to the small pathway of the farm. The only thing we can do is drive slowly and so sorry that not too many pictures of the scenery can be shared.

Beutiful color beside a toilet stop

This is where the caravan driver carry out their cleaning

Unique roadside letter box by the farm

Our car stop by the farm entrance for short while to take picture

Toilet with beautiful painting on its wall

Arriving to Franz Josef Glacier visitor centre. It is a small activity centre where you can buy a lot of activity packages. For sure you would need time to go for such activities too.The main road is passing through the town centre and one end of the road goes across a small stream, which as the entrance to the Franz Josef Glacier Walk.

Starting point of Frenz Josef Glacier Walk

Booking.com

After a short walk through the Frezn Josef Glacier Walk, we continue our way towards the next stop, Fox Glacier.

Scenary of the State Highway

On the State highway

In the car on the State highway :)

Used to be Snow White, but Drifted

Note the Road sign: Give Way to the coming car due to single lane

This is not too long a distance to travel and only one toilet stop available by road side. We found a traditional toilet in the beautiful country. :)

Traditional Toilet?

Then we finally arrive at this little township of Fox Glecier. This seems to be smaller and less developed as compare to Frez Josef Glacier. The walk towards the mountain foot that we can see ice and snow is very long distance, may be due to the warmer weather which shortened the length of accumulated snow.

Township of Fox Glacier

A last snap of photo before leaving Fox Glacier

The journey continue from Fox Glacier toward Queenstown in at high level of altitude and the scenary along 4 to 5 hours drive on the state highway is different from other parts of our journey. We drive through the Lake Wanaka on our right and Lake Wakea on our left.

We heard about the Cardona Bra Fence just before we start our trip to New Zealand. So we did plan to pay a visit if time is allowed, and today, it came to our surprice that I noticed the marker I put on the Maps.Me apps showing that we are driving pass by. So as time is allowed now, we decide to have a phot-stop here. As this fence is at Cardona, so the local call it the Bradona.

I heard this site was started by a lady who came over here for a visit and decide to take picture on the beautiful scenary. She like the scene so much and without people around, she decided to take a topless picture. Her bra was then left over on the fence. It was then followed by other ladies and this slowly accumulated over time. This was started sometimes in 1998 or 1999.

Regardless of what we heard, there are two school of thought, there are people who welcome this as attraction, but there are others that view it as an eyesore and embarassment.

She is so excited with the Bras

On arriving to Queenstown, thanks to the bookmark on Maps.Me which I marked on, we found Ms. Pauline's "Nice Quite Tidy House" easily. As the name implies, it is nice, quite and tidy. Pauline was not at home when we arrived, and we follow her instruction and get into our room just like going back to our own home .... piece of cake! And below are the view of our home for the next three days.
You can click this link to book a hotel in Queenstown.

Arrival to Queenstown was comparatively early. We noted a Chinese restaurant Ale House nearby our home here and decide to have a Chinese meal that we had missed for few days.:))

A 10 minutes drive to Queenstown City center to feel its night life after meal was what we did that night after the satisfactory meal of our traditional taste.

7 Of The Most Beautiful Mosques In The World

Hengly Hang is an author and rice exporter from Cambodia. The article below is shared by him and I think it is worth to share here for my friends who like traveling in this blog. I think he is quite right to include the Ubudia Mosques of Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Malaysia in his list 😊

Just a note to my friends, if you happen to visit any of them and do have a picture of any, and do not mind to share them in my blog, please do sent it to me with your approval for me to share. Thank you.

7 Of The Most Beautiful Mosques In The World
By [http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Hengly_Hang/2341411]Hengly Hang

Are you a holy person? If you are, you most likely be interested in knowing about the most beautiful mosques in the world. Here they are:

Al Haram Mosque-Mecca, Saudi Arabia
It's the most famous worship mosque in the world. According to the Qur'an, it's the first house built for humanity to worship Allah. It's the world's largest mosque and surrounds Kaaba, the holiest places for the Muslims. The current structure covers an area of 99 acres and includes both indoor and outdoor praying spaces. During the period of Hajj, it can accommodate up to 4 million people.

Faisal mosque Islamabad-Pakistan
It's the fourth largest mosque in the world and the biggest in the south-east and southern Asia. From 1986 to 1994, it was the biggest mosque in the world before the completion of the Hassan II in Morocco. For many years, the worship center has been voted as one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Sheikh lotfallah-iran
It was constructed between 1602 and 1619 during the reign of Shah Abbas I. In addition to being a worship center, it has other roles. It also functions as a hospital, royal mint, royal caravanserai, and bath.

Taj ul mosque-Bhopal, India
Located in Bhopal, India, Taj ul mosque is also known as the crown of mosques. Featuring a pink façade, the worship center has two 18-storey minarets with marble domes. It also has a bulbous dome, marble flooring, and grand hallway. There is also a double-storeyed gateway that has four recessed archways. While its primary role is to serve as a mosque, it also doubles as an Islamic school during the day.

Wazir Khan-Lahore, Pakistan
It's located in the northern city of Lahore in Pakistan on one of the busiest roads in the area. The mosque has been standing since the 17th century and is one of the most important landmarks in the city. What makes the worship center attractive is the colors and paintings. Both inside and outside the mosque are fresco paintings and tiles. The paintings feature a wide range of colors such as green, cerulean blue, yellow, purple, orange, and cobalt.

Blue mosque-Istanbul
It's one of the landmarks in Istanbul. It boasts of six needle-like minarets and a series of domes and half domes. It was constructed during the reign of the Ottoman ruler Ahmed I between 1609 and 1616. In addition to the exciting domes, the mosque also has high ceilings featuring 20,000 blue Iznik tiles. The tiles have trees and flowers of differing patterns.

Ubudiah-kuala Kangsar, Malaysia
It prides itself of four minarets and a golden dome that was designed by a British architect, Arthur Benison Huback. Huback created the worship center at the command of Sultan Idris Mushidul Azam Shah who had vowed to construct a beautiful mosque as a thanksgiving after recovering from an illness.

Conclusion
These are some of the most beautiful mosques in the world. In the event you are visiting a city with one of the above-mentioned mosques, don't hesitate to visit it and take in the spectacular beauty.

If you want to know about the most amazing places in the world that you can visit, we have documented them at All amazing place. Visit the given links to know more.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?7-Of-The-Most-Beautiful-Mosques-In-The-World&id=9742203] 7 Of The Most Beautiful Mosques In The World

2017 May 11: From Wellington to Picton with Blue Bridge Ferry and drive to Greymouth

This is another early starting day not only because we use to wake up early but also because we are going for the Bluebridge Ferry from North Island to South Island. I did check the time table in advance and decide to take the trip that departing Wellington at 08:00 hours. According to the requirement, we have to go to the ferry terminal 1 hour in advance for boarding. 

Entering to the deck level of the vessel is the transportation parking area. We parked in the queue as per guidance by the working personnel there. Then there is a staircase that we can walk up three floors to the passenger deck. There is also personal lift available.

Vehicles parking one after the other in line on deck level

The "Still empty" parking line on deck level in Ferry 

Staircase to go from vehicle deck to passenger deck

Food and drinks are sold in the passenger deck and free WIFI is available in the dining hall.

breakfast time: The Dining Hall

Queuing to buy breakfast

Impress with her selection of breakfast

"Cruise Tour" after breakfast

Wind Deck

Life boat hoist

Information Counter

Bow of ferry

Ferry alongside, waiting to depart

Child care room onboard

exposed upper vehicle deck in the rain

Resting after "Cruise Tour"

It took 3.5 hours for the ferry from Wellington to Picton. I have a good rest as majority of the passenger of the day stayed in the dinning hall. If fact, we can pay for room (single, double or four person in one room) of different price to sleep over the 3,5 hours journey if we needed.

Driving out from the Ferry terminal at Picton

On arrival to Picton terminal, there was still raining and we drive towards Greymouth our destination of the day. This took almost 5 hours nevertheless the scenery was beautiful along the way.

Driving route from Picton to Greymouth

Grape field

Beautiful lady with Grape field background

Initially, we passed by a lot of grape plantation. Later, we came across quite a number of farms with long pipeline of "dragon". Initially we did not know what was that until we ask our host when we stay in the farm house. We were told that this long pipeline of "dragon" is the irrigator. It always be installed on the diary farm. This is for proper irrigation of the farm fields to provide good food for the milk cow so that high volume good quality milk can be obtained.

Irrrigator on diary farm field

Besides various farms and plantations, we also drove through mountain, jungles and quite a number of little town, but with very little transport on the road. There was a stretch along the state highway 63 after Renwick which do not seems to have any township beside the highway. This continue into state highway 6 and there were quite a number of location which were under maintenance with very slow traffic.

One of the view along the highway

This was the most difficult distance that we traveled in this trip. Bringing a few bottles of drinking water when driving is our practice and two of us had drunken more than two liters of water each without toilet break for more than 3 hours. Hence we were so glad and happy when this little cafe was found 11 KM before we arrived to Murchinson. It was only two of us in the care for more than half an hours and the following pictures were captured while we relaxed in it.

As I normally believe, resting is for a longer distance to progress. So we have to continue our journey after the cafe and toiler stop. Finally we arrived at Greymouth around 6 pm. The selection of home stay tonight is a caravan in the bush, around 5 KM away from Greymouth city center hosted by Paul and Jannie. This is a choice I made after discussion with my partner. We want to try to feel the stay and overnight in caravan. This is definitely a larger version as compare to the 2-men caravan with larger bed.

The caravan we stayed in the Zephyr model produced in Dunedin in 1973. The host will drive it for their tour annually and it had just be renovated a year ago. When they do not go for tour, this caravan will be parked beside their serene home and it make us very convenient because the host allow us to get into their home and used their kitchen and bathroom.   

It was a comfortable stay, except the bed is short compare to both of us. Thus we are glad that we make the rich choice of renting a normal car rather than using caravan for our trip. 

The day seems to get dark later in the South Island as compare to North Island. We decide to drive to Greymouth city center for a quick look around and took our dinner.

Our host of the day, Paul and Jennie are very friendly couple. Paul is very enthusiastic in their living environment. He told us lots of history of Greymouth including the near by stream where people went for gold mining. Today, he likes to go to the stream but no more gold is found but cobblestone.  

A night view outside of the Caravan in the bush

More pictures in this shared Album