I woke up early in the morning, still very tired from the Milford Sound trip the day before, but I sit down on the bed thinking.. ohh.. today will be our last day here in New Zealand. We will be flying off to KL early tomorrow morning. *sob*
We were supposed to check out from our motel in Queenstown at 10a.m, but Mr D did an early arrangement to allow us to check out a bit later. Our flight from Queenstown to Christchurch will depart at about 1:35p.m, so we didn't want to check out early.
Since we didn't even go to the lakeside ever since we step our foot in Queenstown, I pujuk Mr D to have some time by the lake side that morning. So we walked in between houses towards Lake Wakatipu. Along the way, we saw that cute "CAUTION cats crossing" sign at the junction of one of the roads.
Lake Wakatipu was so peaceful that morning, amidst the cold weather. We just sit down and admire the lake while having our usual chat, that's enough to occupy our morning. We returned to our motel at about 10:30a.m, and by 11a.m we were already in front of the motel waiting for the shuttle to go to airport.
Was a bit too early of course, but we didn't have choice since 11a.m was the maximum we allowed to delay our check out. So we still have plenty of time at the airport to do more souvenir shopping, and observing people [including one cute little southern american toddler who created mess at the airport hahahaha].
It was close to 3pm once we settled with our arrival at Christchurch airport. That includes searching for luggage storage [located just opposite Air Asia counter at departure hall], as our flight to KL will only depart after 12 midnight. We also rented another car on short term basis for us to kill the time before the night's flight. It was a pink Suzuki Alto, reminded me of my pinky at home.
Our first destination was An-Nur Mosque, located very near to Hagley Park. That's where we performed both our jama' zuhr / asr prayer and later that night for maghrib / isya' prayer as well. Was very glad to see the mosque still standing beautifully after many earthquakes. I got the chance to chat for a while with the sisters who joined the jama'ah, from Middle East and African countries and get to know how the Islamic community is around Canterbury.
We then went to Hagley Park, the huge open park located in the middle of the city. I've always wanted to wander around Christchurch, part of the reasons is to see how twin city of Christchurch, Canterbury, England looks like. I used to study in Canterbury, England, and heard so much about how similar this city is with its twin in New Zealand. Too bad I came to New Zealand post earthquakes era. Oh by the way, while other cities in England is famous for their football team, Canterbury in England is famous for rugby. So much of being twin city huh?
We walked by the Avon River, where the famous punting on the Avon activity is done. Due to time constraint, we didn't get to do this activity though. But walking around this area is so comfortably refreshing, especially when the weather is just nice in spring.
The Christchurch Botanic Garden is also located within the compound. This garden is dominated by various species of native plants found in New Zealand and other parts of the World, as well as many old trees which have been there for over 100 years. While walking through this garden, we met a Malaysian couple who have been staying here in New Zealand for a decade.
We walk around the park until maghrib, before heading to the mosque for prayer and head straight later to an Afghan restaurant at Lincoln Road for dinner. They have great selection of kebab and rice, and they have baklava too yayy!! But it wasn't as nice as the one I ate at Ocakbasi in the middle of Canterbury town (the one in England) years ago while I study there.
We used the night to do some chocolate shopping at Pak N Save, where I grab a loooooot of small packaged Whittakers, which I found tasted better than the big one, the peanut one especially because it is full of peanuts. It was already 10p.m by the time we reached the airport that night.. time to go back to KL. *Sigh*
*The End*
I'll definitely fill up my piggy bank and travel to NZ one day! Insya Allah one fine day!
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