Deep in Sheep Country

Dunstan Downs, Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand

Happy Birthday Skye! It’s Skye’s 8th birthday! Time flies huh?!? The last time we met Skye, was in 2018 in Auckland, when she was only a tiny 2 years old!!

Dad, Hazel and Jason’s family are planning a New Zealand trip in November this year. It’d be Jason and family’s first trip to NZ to see Kim! Unfortunately, we’ll not be there for the ‘family reunion’ this year. NZ’s beyond our budget for the time being. Our plans aren’t fixed yet, but we’ll probably make a trip to our India home at the end of the year instead. Lots of unfinished stuff to attend to as usual. So, NZ will have to wait!

Anyway, here’s a continuation of where I left off in my last post of NZ. From Wanaka, we went north, into Canterbury. I wanted to see Mount Cook. What? It’s the highest peak in New Zealand! We’re this close, how can I not give it a try?!? But we had precious little time left, only 2 more nights in the South Island, before we fly back to Auckland. Here goes our adventure!


Heading to the Lindis Pass, on the Tarras - Lindis Pass Road (NZ State Highway No 8) – A view of the hills from the Cluden Hill Summit


North to Aoraki! On the road through the Lindis Pass, State Highway No 8, Otago, South Island, NZ


We’re in Canterbury! Lindis Pass Viewpoint


The track to the Lindis Pass Summit Lookout, at the Otago – Canterbury Border, NZ


We found our camper van spot for the night, Dunstan Downs, a sheep farm, with some facilities for camping. Not great, but not bad too. Ever used a thunderbox toilet? You can try it here. Guarantee, you’ll hate it, haha!


Anu at Dunstan Downs, South Island, NZ, Dec 2018


The main house and office of the Dunstan Downs High Country Sheep Station


OK, we’ve had a good night’s rest. Time to move again. A long journey awaits.


Another Lavender Farm? NZ Alpine Lavender, on the Mount Cook Road. We’re heading to Mount Cook!


Shucks! It’s all rainy, and clouds in Aoraki. Guess we’ll not be able to see Mt Cook after all. Better luck next time. But I consider ourselves lucky already because this was the first and only time that it rained during our entire 1 week trip of the South Island. New Zealand is famous infamous for its wet and windy climate. While we were enjoying ourselves in the South Island, Dad, Hazel and Kim’s lot were fending off the pounding rain in Auckland. For more photos of the Aoraki/ Mt Cook area, check this earlier post.


Heading back into civilization, Anu at Lake Pukaki. Behind in the horizon, below the storm clouds, is the Aoraki Mount Cook National Park


If only we could fly… Red Cat Biplane, near Twizel’s little airport

That’s all for now. Gotta head to Cromwell fast, have to find a place to sleep for our last night in the South Island before it turns dark. See ya!

What We Did in Wanaka

The heat’s definitely back in Dubai. Bye-bye outdoors, for the time being. And I suddenly find myself super-busy, involved in a big tender, which is a good thing in slower times like what the company’s having now. So, it’s back to picture posts of our past journeys in faraway places. Faraway places are something I always look forward to. When’s our next big adventure? Hmmmm…


Anyway, here’s a continuation of my last post of New Zealand’s South Island, the Road to Paradise. From there, we headed to Wanaka, the town famous for this little tree in a lake… Why? You tell me… (Read on to find out more)


The Crown Range Summit was where we stopped the last time, “Wanaka, here we come!” On the Crown Range Road, Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Dec 2018


The hills are alive, with flowers and trees – the missus’s favourite things


Whoa! What’s this? The Fence of Lost Bras? Is this where all the lost bras end up? Lost a bra? No worries, head over to Cardrona, NZ. It must be there, somewhere… Nah, this is actually a promotion for breast cancer awareness. Support the cause by donating to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation!


Finally, Wanaka! Wanaka Town sits on the southern shore of a pristine lake with its namesake, Lake Wanaka

Wanaka is famous for having ample ‘Instagram-able’ spots, like #ThatWanakaTree, above. Apart from that, there’s also Roy’s Peak Lookout. But that’s a 6.3 km hike up the hill from the road, and the same distance back. Nah, that’ll take too much time, and it’ll be too much for the kids (and ahem… yours truly, maybe). So, we decided to head to a kid’s place instead – the Puzzling World. (Hell, when you’ve got kids, you’ve got to think of places for them to enjoy also. Hills, valleys and hiking is wonderful for us, but the kids? They’d prefer a playground, any playground, even at home, over a long hike!) So, here’s one for the kids!


“Mommy, run, that tower’s falling!” Don’t worry boys, that uncle is holding it up. He’s actually Atlas the Titan, in human form, cursed to hold up the leaning tower of Wanaka for eternity…


What’s this? Some new fitness fad? Lean back and enjoy??


A wall of Nelson Mandela’s. I bet you, this is straight out from Netanyahu’s bad dreams… “Repent Benjamin! Is killing people alright for you?”


What’s so fun about a maze? But kids love mazes. “Yeah, c’mon, let’s find our way out of this!”


“Where’s the toilet, mommy?” “No, not this type of toilet!!!” I didn’t know Romans used toilets for meetings?!? “Awww, that smells awful. What did you eat, man?” The Puzzling World is a ‘museum’ and park of optical illusions.


And weird inventions like this one. Tired, eh? Kids?




Time to go. Let’s make a stop at the Lavender Farm for mommy! Before we head off further north, to find our next place to park our camper van!

See you, till I see you!

The Good Ol’ Dry Days

A dry dam… along the E102 Road, in Ras Al-Khaimah territory (I think), just before the turnoff to Hatta Road. Let’s see whether I can find a name for this in Google Maps… There it is! Wadi Al Munay Breaker. Breaker? Shouldn’t it be ‘Dam’ instead? Who named that?

Whoa! Not again? Last week, there was another rain scare in Dubai. Yup, the UAE announced another round of distant learning for schools on last Thursday and Friday, and our office (including our dear head office this time) asked us to work from home last Thursday. Sure enough, rain came on Thursday, and we had half a day of rain. It wasn’t bad. There were no massive floods like in April. There were a few localized puddles at known low locations (and it added a little bit of water to the previously flooded locations which still haven’t been completely cleared).

No big deal. But, …what’s happening?? Is this due to global warming?? We’re supposed to be a god-forsaken desert, aren’t we? We’ve had more rain in the last few months than I’ve ever experienced in my 10+ years in this desert of a place. At the apartment that we’re staying in now, I remember we’ve had no rain for something like 1.5 - 2 years. And now there’s rain every few weeks?!?

Are we turning into a tropical friggin country? Have the prayers of the UAE people finally been answered? (UAE airlines artificially ‘green’ the UAE region in their in-flight maps that show the planes’ flight paths when they fly over the UAE. You’ll see the normal brown-yellow of Iran, and then, lo and behold, the UAE’s all green and nice like it’s a friggin tropical country!) Now, there’re mosquitoes all over the friggin place, and they’re growing fatter by the day. Where do these critters suddenly come from? I thought they didn’t exist in the UAE (except for our house, because Anu’s a giver of life. Her garden’s full of life: trees, plants, birds – I can’t count how many generations of doves and sunbirds that our garden has produced, ants, butterflies, slugs, etc, and of course, pesky mosquitoes).

People here no longer post photos of having tea and picnic in the rain. Previously, when there’s rain, it’s like a water fair! Frolicking and playing in the rain like babies who’ve never seen water before. Now it’s pictures of cars inside water, homes damaged by water, but there’re still some funny ones of people with too much time on their sleeves paddling their kayaks in the housing area streets… And, there’re no more talks of cloud-seeding. “Huh? What? What’s that??”

Anyway, I’m not much of a sucker for the rain. I’ve had enough rain, and mosquitoes, in Malaysia and India to be too big a fan. I especially don’t like the mud and muck that the water leaves behind. But I do like the occasional downpour that cools things down and bring life to the wadis. And the smell of an impending storm and the sound of thunder in the distance. That’s always cool to me.

It’s been a week since the last rain, and it feels like we’re finally getting back to being a desert. Things are steadily heating up. It’s mid-May after all. In the previous years, it would’ve been a friggin oven by now. This year, the heat’s a little slower, thanks to the rain. It’s still OK to walk out in the gardens… But it’s coming, the dry ol’ days. “Die, mosquitoes, die!”

Here’re some photos of when things were ‘nice’ and dry, when we had to go hunting for water in the dams and wadis of the UAE, just to have some fun. A last picnic post before we head into heat wave territory… It’ll have to be at least October, or more like November, before we could think of camping again, sigh.


Another photo of the Wadi Al Munay ‘Breaker’ / Dam – dry as a bone, Nov 2022


Another dam, Siji Dam, Fujairah, Jan 2022


Oh, there’s the water!! There’s actually more water further upstream, and at the old dam site, but it somehow wasn’t very accessible




Fooling around at Wadi Siji Dam


Don’t forget our picnic! Wadi Siji, Jan 2022


Wadi Shawka Dam! Feb 2021


Wadi Shawka Dam Park, Ras Al-Khaimah. Feb 2021 was our first visit to Wadi Shawka. Little did we know then, that as time comes, Wadi Shawka would become our favourite camping site in the UAE. No, not the dam, but the wadi itself


Hey, where do those stairs go? Wadi Shawka Dam


What do you think these are for? A stand for some performance?


Beyond the dam! Hey, it’s quite interesting


Huh? What’s this? People picnicking? How did the cars come in? If they can come, so can we. We’ll find a way, hehe


Wadi Shawka, Ras Al-Khaimah, Feb 2021, the first of our visit – Just you watch, we’ll be back!

There you go. Visits to some of the ‘lesser-known’ dams in the UAE. The more well-known dams are the Hatta Dam and Rafisah Dam, which are usually crowded, not really our cup o’ tea.