New Zealand in Memory - Andy Wan

万兵-岷山雪

<p>South Island of New Zealand is very beautiful. I have been there twice in autumn. New Zealand is located Southwest Pacific Ocean, formed by volcanic eruption. As New Zealand is located in the Southern Hemisphere, which is opposite of our seasons. So every April and May is autumn in New Zealand. At that time, there are lots of red leaves or yellow leaves on the mountains and on the side of road. There are many flowers in every town. Fresh air, blue sky, snow mountains, vast grassland, silent lake water, white beach, clear seawater, clean towns and enthusiastic locals, everywhere and everything is very beautiful. Most people in the world like to go there to enjoy everything in autumn.</p> <p>Christchurch is the biggest city in South Island. There are many English style old buildings with a history of more than 100 years. There is a big park in the center of city, Avon river go across the park and city. There are many big trees, flowers in it. Many birds and small animals, such as wild duck, mandarin duck, swan and squirrel,live at it. Everything is so harmonious and nature.</p> <p>What a big tree!</p> <p>What a leafy tree!</p> <p>People ride bicycle and exercise in this park.</p> <p>Avon river is 14 kilometers long. It divides the city in two. You can find there are a lot of big tree, flowers on both sides of the river. There are some benches on the riverbank and you can take a rest on them if you feel tired.</p> <p>Walking on the park and by the river is a great pleasure.</p> <p>some waterfowl paddle in the river.</p> <p>A madam in a boat on the river, and a handsome boy was rowing for her.</p> <p>Canoeing</p> <p>This was a old streetcar in the city, load bearing history and memory.</p> <p>Lake Tekapo is very beautiful, between Christchurch and Queenstown.</p><p><br></p> <p>The water usually presents a dreamy green and blue because there are many special turquoise stones at the bottom of the lake.</p> <p>In the east of the lake, There is a small stone house called Good shepherd church, which was built in 1935.</p> <p>It is beautiful and elegant, very harmonious and natural with the lake.</p> <p>The good shepherd church At dawn.</p> <p>Starry sky, milky way and the church in the evening.</p><p><br></p> <p>Lake Tekapo is one of the best places to see stars in the world.</p><p><br></p> <p>We hiked along the hike valley trail in the Kuk Mountain National Park. We can enjoy magnificent scenery, very comfortable.</p><p><br></p> <p>We booked the local-style dwelling houses with kitchen online in advance.</p> <p>So we can cooked some Chinese dishes by ourselves, such as braised beef, double cooked pork, roasted chicken wings and chicken legs. One was to increase the fun of traveling, the other was to reduce the cost of traveling. Shoot two hawks with on arrow.</p> <p>Srounded by mountains, Lake Wanaka is a good place to breathe fresh air and relax.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p> <p>Lake Wanaka at dawn.</p> <p>The locals like to exercise on the lake in the morning.</p><p><br></p> <p>Photographers were chasing light and shadow here.</p><p><br></p> <p>The Wanaka tree, also known as alone tree, it is famous tree by the lake. Most tourists like to stay with the tree in the morning or at night.</p><p>When the sun reflects the tree at sunrise and sunset, the scenery is very beautiful and harmonious with the surrounding environment. Photographers like to take pictures of it.</p> <p>In the evening a pianist was playing some music here in the charming scenery, it was seems this tree can understand music!</p> <p>In the evening a couple were exercising yoga by the lake.</p><p><br></p> <p>Their silhouette in the setting sun.</p> <p>After yoga, the boy went into the lake and paddle in the water, the water droplets formed beautiful light and shadow under the reflection of sunset.</p> <p>It is always a wonderful time to gaze at beauty of nature in the morning, it makes our minds become so peaceful and calm.</p><p><br></p> <p>It is a beautiful lake, closed to a road, it seems to have overturned God’s palette. But I didn’t know his name.</p><p>.</p> <p>There are many lakes like this in New Zealand. The scenery of lakes and mountains accompanied our journey and intoxicated us.</p><p><br></p> <p>We met the rainbow many times on our journey. When I saw the rainbow I remembered the story from the Bible: after the great flood that destroyed the world, God made the rainbow as a promise to Noah that he would never flood his world again.</p><p><br></p> <p>This was the my first time seeing this kind of auspicious clouds.</p><p><br></p> <p>Quiet and pure.</p><p><br></p> <p>Perfect interpretation of tranquility.</p><p><br></p> <p>Dreamlike and fantastic scenery.</p><p><br></p> <p>Boat, lake, town in the evening.</p> <p>I only wanted staying here silently to enjoyed everything when I saw some beautiful and fantastic sceneries.</p><p><br></p> <p>Roadside scenery.</p> <p>Roadside waterfall.</p><p><br></p> <p>Opened the to see the beautiful senery when we lived at local-style dwelling house.</p><p><br></p> <p>This was a gate of private pasture, with a winding gravel path and dozens of tall poplars with golden leaves, leaves fell all over the ground.</p><p><br></p> <p>The beauty of beautiful scenery was tantalizing, and people were fascinated by beauty. We enjoyed everything here for two hours.</p><p><br></p> <p>In order to found the best angle, we had to shoot like this.</p> <p>We took some pictures here with two vehicles that we rented. But then something very dangerous happened.</p><p>Five days ago, when we arrived at Christchurch airport to pick up two SUV vehicles that we rented online in advance, the rental company gave us two ones, one of them was a gasoline vehicle but another was a diesel. Now both vehicles ran out of the oil, so we drove them to a gas station near the town. I took a pump of gas to refuel a vehicle, after two minutes I suddenly found it was wrong pump, I just was putting gasoline oil into the diesel tank. that time about 10 liters gasoline were alread filled into the tank of the diesel one. We didn’t know if this would cause damage to the vehicle or if it won’t start. I immediately called my another friend domestic to ask how should we do for this. My friend was a driver before so he had more experiences about this. He told me it is not very serious because only a little gasoline were filled into the tank of diesel. But it was very serious if we refuelled diesel into gasoline tank. We filled this tank of vehicle with diesel and drove it away. Everything was ok. Oh my God! it was luck for us.&nbsp;</p> <p>Arrowtown, a small tourist town, beautiful and charming. many people go there traveling from all over the world every year. There were a lot of red and yellow leaves on the surrounding mountains in the autumn, we took many pictures.</p><p><br></p> <p>Dolls were also a tourist attraction at the town.</p><p><br></p> <p>Queenstown was a famous resort with a history of more than 100 years. People like to try some extreme sports here, such as bungee, paraglide, skydiving and jet skiing etc.</p><p><br></p> <p>There is Lake Wakatipu next to the queenstown, it is third bigest lake in New Zealand, which is very beautiful. In the early morning fog shrouded the mountains.</p><p><br></p> <p>We took the cable car to the top of the mountain behind Queenstown, overlooking the Queenstown and the lake Wakatipu. The view at sunset was even more intoxicating.</p><p><br></p> <p>We took a 100 year old steamboat to sail on the lake and enjoy all the beautiful scenery.</p> <p>We enjoyed Chinese food and delicious food at a restaurant in the town, such as black gold abalone, southern pole euphausiid shrimp.</p><p><br></p> <p>Lake Mathson is a beautiful mirror lake. You can see the reflection of Kuk mountain in the water when it’s sunny. We walked along the path through a wild wood for two hours to the lake.&nbsp;</p> <p>The deep mirror water, the distant snow mountains and the leisurely black swanwere all so beautiful and dreamy, what an unforgettable scenery!</p><p><br></p> <p>Greenchino town, this is where the Lord of the Rings was filmed here. We drove to go there along the lake Wakatipu, this road is one of the ten most beautiful self driving one in the world, with beautiful scenery, one side was the mountain and another was the lake.</p><p><br></p> <p>Greenchino is a small town, located on the north of the lake Wakatipu, only 45 kilometers away from Queenstown, only 400 people lived there. But the lakes, grassland, mountains, pastures here have basically maintained their original econogical feature.</p> <p>what a beautiful scenery!</p> <p>We have seen rainbow several times during our self driving trip.</p> <p>The ladies who were with us didn’t want missing the opportunity and took some pictures with rainbow on the way.</p><p><br></p> <p>We left lakes and snow mountains and pasture and drove to the west coast of the South Island. There was another different view here.</p><p><br></p> <p>There were a long and winding coast, wide beaches, dense rainforests and world’s most accessible glaciers in this area.</p><p>The sea water was very clear and dark blue under the sunshine and blue sky. Wind was strong and the waves were pounding rocks, made a rumbling sound.</p><p><br></p> <p>The Pancake rocks is a beautiful and peculiar landscape and it formed a thousand layers of cake, which was a kind of stacked spectacle due to the long-term effect of nature.</p><p><br></p> <p>The waves beat against rocks and made some earth shaking sounds.</p><p><br></p> <p>It was an video-visule feast . Seawater and rocks were the main characters and sightseeing features here.</p> <p>The light and shadow of dreams.</p><p><br></p> <p>In the morning my friends and I flew over Fox glacier by helicopter, then our helicopter stopped at the top of glacier, where we walked and photographed and played here. The Fox glacier was 13 kolimeters long and it pours down from a 2600 meters high mountain. The snow and ice here were very white, pure without any pollution.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p> <p>I took a picture with the helicopter and pilots, leaving precious record.</p><p><br></p> <p>The best travel in life was to find a long lost touch in a strange place. Travel will change my mentality and let me see the different and beautiful points of view. The memory in my mind is best. But if you want seeing the most beautiful and dreamlike scenery you should go to the South Island of New Zealand as soon as possible!</p><p>Maybe I will go there again in the later</p>