Enjoying New Zealand’s Outdoors

There’s a reason why New Zealand is nicknamed ‘God’s Own Land’. If you’ve ever seen the epic trilogy Lord of the Rings, its easy to see why: the three movies were filmed on location in New Zealand and the breathtaking landscape in which the characters interacted sparked admiration and awe in the hearts of millions of viewers around the world. New Zealand is blessed with some of the most fantastic scenery in the world, ranging from snow clad peaks to bubbling lava pits, and thousands of visitors come every year to experience for themselves the land that was beautiful enough to stand in for Middle Earth. 

Lake in New Zealand

 

A drive around New Zealand

Or course, the supremely easy way to enjoy the scenery would be to go online and look at the numerous stunning pictures available. Most people prefer to actually go there and tramp out into the country, hiking or riding miles out to see some of the most pristine and awe-inspiring landscapes the country can offer. Let’s assume however that you’re in Auckland for a bit and want to see the country with as little effort as possible. So how do you go about it?

The first thing you’d need is a car. Any kind of dependable car is good, but what would be even better is a driver to do the serious business of driving while you sit back and take in the scenery. This is particularly necessary in New Zealand, where distances between towns are much longer than they look on the map. It is also important because Kiwi drivers are notorious for having lead feet and not minding the road; which means that at least one person has to keep an eye on the road. It is much easier for you when that eye belongs to someone else, preferably the driver.

Once this crucial matter is settled, there remains the question: where to go? Fortunately, New Zealand has a very good road system and the answer is quite simple: pick a road on the map and drive it. You’ll most likely see some great scenery along the way, even with this haphazard method. North Island is pretty well settled, with innumerable little towns scattered about, so petrol and accommodations are pretty easy to come by. There are the usual hotels, motels and camping grounds available, which means making an unplanned journey isn’t as daring as it would be in most other countries. If you really want to see most of the best sights in the country, you can do a fairly comprehensive tour of both North and South Island, without too much trouble.

Exploring New Zealand's North Island

From Auckland, you can head south along the Pacific Coast Highway to the Coromandel Peninsula, which is popular with the locals and overlooked by the majority of tourists. You might want to stop in Cormandel Town or the Bay of Plenty for the night or longer, to do justice to the splendid coastline with some picture taking or a seafood meal. A short trip inland will get you to Rotorua, the city famed for the overhanging scent of bad eggs and the hot springs, bubbling mud pots and geysers(pictured right) responsible for the smell. Here you can get intimate with the landscape, soaking in the hot springs while enjoying the view from the steaming waters.

Volcano 

A bit further along is Lake Taupo, which is famed as the biggest caldera lake in the world and a very pleasant sight. Taking part in the various water sports and outdoor activities might be a bit much however, so you can just go for another soak in the hot springs here. Continuing along the way, you’ll eventually get to Hawke’s Bay and here, you can again get personal with the scenery, for this is New Zealand’s premier Wine Country. Award winning wines are easy to find here and there’s no better way to enjoy the country than to savour its best produce! From there, you can make your way south to Wellington, capital city and home to some very pleasant cityscapes. From here, you can make the short trip to South Island, which most people say is home to New Zealand’s most stunning scenery.

Driving around South Island

Heading down to South Island from North Island involves a ferry ride across Cook Straits, which is itself a charming experience, provided the wind is kind enough not to blow too hard. If it does, images of shipwrecks and such disasters tend to come to mind. Once you’re back on solid ground in Picton, things look much brighter. Of course, you could save yourself a bout of seasickness by flying straight down to Christchurch.

The South Island is the rugged sister of the more urban North Island, with more mountains, sweeping vistas and deep forests. This makes for much more varied scenery, but also more challenging driving. Since the country is more rugged, there are fewer towns, which means there are fewer petrol stations as well, so keeping your car gassed up is crucial if you don’t want to break down in the middle of nowhere. Assuming that you didn’t fly straight down to Christchurch and that you want to stick to the more populated areas, then it’s best to follow the State Highway 1, which mostly runs along the east coast of South Island. Along the route, you can see rolling farmlands, beautiful coastal scenery and enjoy the delights of the towns you pass through. You’ll also be able to stop off at Christchurch to take in the pretty churches and gardens, as well as enjoy city entertainments after all that country viewing. Once you’ve ‘done’ Christchurch, then its off to points south.

If you did take the car ferry across the Cook Straits and are feeling really adventurous (and your driver agrees), you can try driving down Route 6, which follows closely along the extreme west coast of South Island. This route is a great way to get up close to the most rugged region of New Zealand, often called Westland in the older guidebooks. It also avoids most of the major settlements on the island, steadily winding its way south until the Lake Wanaka region, where you can reconnect to the rest of the highway system.

Whichever route you decided to take, further south a great place to head for Mt Cook Village and more importantly, its Airport, where you can take a Ski Plane for a scenic flight over the famed peak, the tallest mountain on South Island, as well as its icy companion the Fox Glacier. There’s nothing quite like flying high above a snow-capped mountain and glacier to appreciate the pristine beauty of the alpine landscape (except perhaps a strenuous bout of skiing). Once the flight is over, you can make your way further south to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the country. Fortunately, you can skip the more strenuous attractions like white-water rafting, bungee jumping and skiing, and go for something far more relaxing: a helicopter flight to see the sights. You can forsake the car for just a little while to get a spectacular aerial view of such sights as Lake Wakatipu, The Remarkables mountain range, Coronet Peak, Kawarau Gorge, Shotover River and Skippers Canyon. If you’ve got the funds for it, you can even take longer flights and see more distant sights such as Milford Sound.

To Milford Sound and Stewart Island

From Queenstown, the journey would probably veer off to the west for a bit, but the detour is well worth it. The Fiordland National Park on the west coast has some of the most amazing scenery around and Rudyard Kipling rightly calls it the ‘eighth wonder of the world.’ The park is one of the largest in the world, covering about 1.3 million acres of land, much of it inaccessible except on foot; however the park is home to the magnificent Milford Sound, which is easily accessible to someone without any desire to perspire or pant. 

 

The road down to Milford Sound passes through some beautiful forests which epitomize the word ‘primeval’, and the river which runs beside it is reputed for having the best fly- and trout-fishing in the country. Further along is a one-lane tunnel that is open each way for 25 minutes each hour, after which is seven miles of tight bends plunging down 2,300 feet. The hazards are evident in the fact it is a non-insurable road to drive; as the passenger however, all you’d have to worry about is enjoying the view of the native flora and fauna along the way. At the end of this nerve-wracking ride, is Milford Sound. If you’re inclined to leave the comfort of your car, then a cruise up the fiord is in order, and allows you a comfortable view of towering, cloud-wreathed mountains, thick forests and possibly even the rare cold-water coral reefs.

Once you’ve left the remote fastness of the park, you can travel further south still to Stewart Island. On maps it appears as a little dot, if it appears at all, but it is still worth a visit. Stewart Island is blessed with abundant forests, lush and vibrant and abundant with native fauna. There are plenty of kaka, parakeets, tui and bellbirds to liven up a slow drive along the road and this is one of the few places where an extremely lucky visitor has even a small chance of catching a glimpse of the shy kiwi in the wild, as they are pretty common around the island. A short stroll along the beach (and there are plenty of secluded coves on the Island) may also turn up glitters of gold among the sands, but unfortunately, its mostly fools gold. Still, the spectacular scenery makes up for the disappointment and seals, dolphins and penguins are charming attractions.

There are plenty of other attractions all along these routes, but then, that’s New Zealand: always something new and interesting a little further on. Most of New Zealand’s really spectacular sights are a bit out of the way, but that doesn’t mean you have to have calves of steel and the lungs of a deep sea diver to enjoy the fantastic scenery, as long as you’ve got some means of getting around. The country is so lovely that even a casual drive will bring breathtaking views and there are plenty of options for those who want to go a bit further afield without collapsing of exhaustion. After all, many Kiwi companies specialize in bringing appreciative visitors around their beautiful country with the maximum of enjoyment and the minimum of effort, and if it means seeing the sights without constant wheezing, well....why not?

Singapore after Sundown

This is true of Singapore, a city where major shopping and dining areas burst with people and activity at night. Bright and colourful lighting punctuate the night, and where clubbing happens, you will also hear pulsating music.

One of the characteristics of cities located at tropical islands is that the people come out on to the streets after the sun comes down. 

 

SINGAPORE

Hanging out at night in Singapore

The streets of Orchard Road, the main shopping district, teem with crowds. Stand at any of the major traffic crossings and you will experience the rush of people clashing from opposite directions at the zebra crossing, on their way to their next stop on the shopping strip. On any given night, you might find: a street performer or an entire performance troupe with a music or acrobatic act, workmen setting up a large tent for a major product launch, or the ice cream man whose specialty is a cut out of a block of local ice-cream filling a wafer or bread sandwich.

Farther down the road you will come to CHIJMES — the former Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. Previously a combined orphanage and school for girls run by Catholic Nuns, the complex was restored and today serves as a mixed use complex with retail, restaurant and watering hole outlets. The impressive chapel is the centerpiece of the complex, and now serves as a multi-purpose hall. Music performances and sporting events are celebrated here, while artists’ works are often on exhibition around the compound.

On warm nights near the waterfront, the row of preserved shophouses around the three quays — Boat, Clarke and Robertson — come alive with the bar-hopping crowd. Most of the bars and dance clubs have a theme — Latin music, pool table, sports, refined wine appreciation. Take your pick. One of the (harmlessly) naughty attractions at Clarke Quay is the local outlet of Hooters Restaurant. With a service staff made up exclusively of comely young ladies dressed in singlets and running shorts, they serve up fried chicken and burgers with a little hula hoop dance now and then.

Well, there is more than one way to appreciate the tropical nights. If you are game for wild animals, you can take a trip to the Zoological Gardens for a Night Safari. Located in the Northern part of Singapore, the Zoo sits by the shore of a reservoir lake, which forms part of the backdrop. Visitors can take an open tractor-bus into the park, and get off at stop points to walk around and observe the animals in the park.

The animals are clustered by region of origin. Various sections are designed to re-create the Burmese hillside, the Himalayan Foothills, a Nepalese River Valley, India, equatorial Africa, an Indo-Malayan forest, an Asian Riverine environment and the South American Pampas. If the animals cooperate, you might catch a glimpse of mountain goats and sheep from the Himalayas, the familiar Tiger, rare Rhinoceros from Nepal-Assam and giant rodents from South America.

For a little of the local flavour, you can make a visit to the East Coast Park, where several seafood restaurants serve local style crabs, prawns fishes and other sea delicacies. The atmosphere is just right, with a mild sea breeze and open air dining when the weather is good. After dinner, you can take a stroll along the many walking paths criss-crossing the park. Joggers, inline skaters and cyclists zoom along the wider roads, and anglers park themselves along Bedok Jetty or outcroppings of sand and stones. In the near distance, you will see the international fleet of merchant ships waiting their turn to dock in Singapore’s bustling harbour.

Singapore : From One End of Orchard Road to the Other

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Paris has its Champs Elysee, the world famous boulevard where both locals and visitors take part in the fashionable promenade, alongside exclusive boutiques, high priced sidewalk cafes and some of the most elegant, refined and sought after members of the European elite.

On the other part  of the world, Singapore has its own Orchard Road — and while it might not have the cool sophistication of its Parisian counterpart, it does beat the French avenue hands down in one area; shopping.
 

The best way to appreciate this is to stand on the corner of the intersection of Orchard Road, Scott Road and Paterson Road and look down the length of Orchard Road. You’ll immediately notice the resemblance to the Champs Elysee; with pavements and broad pedestrian ways, sheltered by great tropical trees, beneath which stroll the fashionably dressed, the elegantly sophisticated and the gawking curious. There is one major difference however; where the Champs-Elysee is lined by the elegant façade of 18th century buildings, discreetly housing the most prestigious boutiques and restaurants in the city, Orchard Road is flanked for as far as the eye can see by the hugely varied bulk of shopping malls, more shopping malls and still more shopping malls. There is a statistic floating around that Orchard Road has the highest concentration of shopping malls per square kilometre of any city on earth — and gazing down that impressive stretch, there’s no reason to doubt it!
 

Orchard Road of the Past

The trendy boulevard of today has come a long way from its dusty, country road roots.  Unlike many roads in Singapore, Orchard Road was not named after any particular person, but was instead named after the many nutmeg plantations, pepper farms and fruit orchards that used to line the street in the 1830s. It was a quiet area until the late 1960s, when a few enterprising Chinese businessmen saw the potential and turned it into a major business district. Over time, the area has developed, until it has become the behemoth of shopping it is today. Little sign of its past remains, though the names of plantation owners like Oxley, Carnie (Cairnhill) and Cuppage are immortalized in the street names of the area.


A walk down Orchard Road is one of those ‘must-do’ activities for visitors coming to Singapore, and there’s plenty to see and do. Technically, the Orchard Road district begins at the Ming Hotel on Tanglin Road and finishes at the circle at Cathay. Most people however prefer to mark their walk down the road by the shopping mall they pass along its length! There's certainly plenty of those, so lets start at the beginning...


A Slow Stroll Down The Boulevard...

If you’re particularly wealthy, you can start your promenade at the Tanglin Shopping Centre at the very head of Orchard Road, which offers plenty of shops dealing in antiques, souvenirs, exquisite Persian, Pakistani, and Afghanistan carpets and discreet tailors. Further down the road, there is the Palais Renaissance. This marble edifice, as its posh name suggests, is distinctly upmarket, and offers a superb range of prestigious, exclusive boutiques that carry top-notch international designer labels. Incidentally, just behind the Palais is the Royal Thai Embassy, the last remaining embassy in the Orchard Road area after all other governments fled from the sky-rocketing property prices.

For the less well-heeled people however, the most commonly walked stretch of Orchard Road starts from the Scotts/Paterson Road intersection and heads down Orchard Road until just a little before the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, a good two kilometres away. Right on the corner of the Scotts Road intersection is Shaw House. Like many shopping malls, it is better known for the major international company which serves as an anchor store, which in this case is Isetan. Popular for the Japanese  bookstore chain Kinokuniya, it’s a major youth hangout thanks to the internet cafes and the Lido cinema on the upper level (which brings echoes of the Champs Elysee). 




Opposite the road and accessible via an underground passageway is Tang’s, emporium of the influential Tang family and one of the first shopping malls to be built on Orchard Road, back when it was still barely more than a quiet country street in 1932. The shopping centre has been catering for every need since then, and is still going strong today. Above the Tangs emporium is Marriot Hotel, just one of many hotels dotted along the length of the road.

Further down the road (and sharing the corners of the Bideford Road intersection with Ngee Ann City, Mandarin Hotel and the Crown Prince Hotel) is the Paragon, a low glassy architectural puzzle which offers more high-class boutiques. Incidentally, if you’re having trouble finding taxis along Orchard Road (and you probably will), the taxi stand on Bideford Road just next to Paragon almost always sports a taxi or two.

Opposite Paragon is the Ngee Ann City shopping mall, offering the giant Japanese anchor chain Takashimaya, which won the Tourism award for Best Shopping Experience. This shopping mall is best known for having better architecture than the majority of the malls along the road, a remarkably well stocked and popular food court. It is also popular because once you’ve entered, you can descent to the lower levels and continue moving underground in an air conditioned comfort to the adjacent shopping mall, Wisma Atria.

The underground complex offers a passage to the Lucky Plaza shopping centre on the other side of the road, so you can avoid the hassle of waiting at the traffic lights to cross the road. Lucky Plaza offers a little bit of everything and apparently appeals especially to teenagers, if you’re interested. Behind Lucky Plaza is Mount Elizabeth Hospital, one of the most advanced institutions in the Asian region. Though definitely not a tourist attraction, it is a popular destination for international visitors looking for medical treatment, and is even reportedly equipped with luxury suites, complete with gold toilets and taps, for when royalty from a certain oil-rich sultanate visit.

The underground complex also offers direct access the Orchard Road MRT station, just beyond the beautiful marine aquarium, which has become a landmark. The city’s ubiquitous public transport network is fast, cheap and reliable. The MRT is a great way to travel if you’d rather avoid the muggy heat outside, but it does mean missing out on fascinating human scenery you’d see above-ground.
 

An eyeful of scenery

One of the best thing about walking along the boulevard is the opportunity to see and be seen. Orchard Road is prime posing ground for the city’s young and well heeled, where many yuppies come to display their wealth and status, bought from expensive perfume counters and exclusive boutiques along the avenue. Orchard Road is where the beautiful and the sophisticated come to show off and if it’s an eyeful of Singaporean beauty you want, then there’s no better way to get it than a stroll down the pedestrian walks on a not-too-hot Saturday afternoon.

There are also plenty of international visitors to look at. The Singapore Tourism Board has been trying to promote Orchard Road as a tourist centre, and it has been fairly successful, at least in drawing tourist shoppers — the boulevard is often packed with visitors from Europe and the States doing their best to empty their wallets before boarding the plane home. In recent years, the Middle Easterners have joined the stream of international buyers, and it’s no longer uncommon to see the women, still clad in black djabellas, tramping around with armload of shopping bags.
 

Moving Along...

The trendiest and most expensive shopping centres are congregated around the Scotts Road intersection up to about the Bideford Road intersection. Moving further down the road, the shopping malls become distinctly less pricey and sophisticated. The transition occurs right about the point where the nearest MRT station becomes not Orchard Road, but either Somerset or Dhoby Ghaut. Still, that doesn’t mean you should abandon the promenade, as there’s still a couple of interesting destinations further on.

Beyond the Bideford intersection and a little way down is Peranakan Place (pictured above), a short stretch of shop houses preserved from the 1920’s and restored to a glorious new life as a tourist destination for those who wants a taste of Singaporean history, without actually leaving the commercial delights of Orchard Road. Just next to Peranakan place is the one-stop shopping mall Centrepoint. Housing the tourism-award winning (Best Retail Outlet) anchor chain Robinson & Co, this mall is a popular provider of everyday goods, and a favoured destination for shoppers who wants to say they bought their goods from Orchard Road, without paying Orchard Road prices. Across the road (again, via an underground passage) is the Somerset MRT station located just behind the Specialist’s Shopping Centre.

Moving further along is Le Meridien Singapore Shopping Centre, topped by the Meridien Hotel. Opposite the shopping centre is the Penang Road Park, which offers a touch of peaceful greenery amidst all the concrete and commercialism. A little further down is the Istana Park, complete with a pond, while further still is the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, opposite a row of international fast food restaurants.

It is at about Dhoby Ghaut that Orchard Road finally peters out, changing its name to Bras Basah Road (which, if you’re interested to know, means Wet Rice).From this point onwards, the road becomes more and more business-like and practical, leaving its glitzy sophisticated malls behind for office buildings, museums and other less trendy attractions.

When To Visit?

Orchard Road is a grand place to visit at any time of the year, but a particularly good time is during the Great Singapore Sale, held for six weeks from May to July. During these crazy periods, every shopping mall competes in slashing their prices. The bargains are plentiful, with many designer goods going for anything from 50% to 70% off. As you can imagine this a crowded and frenzied time! Other good times to visit are during festivals like Christmas, the trees lining the avenue are festooned with lights, making a night time promenade particularly delightful. 

 
During Chinese New Year, dragon dances are held along Orchard Road and once a year, the Chingay Parade 




makes its way down the boulevard, showing off all aspects of Singapore’s culture in a pageantry of floats, marching bands and dancing dragons and lions. If you miss any of these occasions however, never fear — there’s always something to do or buy to console yourself in the many malls of Orchard Road!

  

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