Land of Idyllic Beauty

The "land of idyllic beauty" is a perfect phrase to describe the life in New Zealand. The journey between Christchurch and Queenstown takes approximately 500 kilometers, and there are several vineyards along the way. The area is surrounded by many trees, a large number of well-developed parks and exquisite residential gardens.

Our destination, Queenstown, has an estimated resident population of 20,000. The beauty of this landscape draws thousands of visitors each day, with over one hundred thousand visitors during summer and winter months. This makes it one of New Zealand’s most visited tourist spots and a well-developed town.

The most well known place in Queenstown is Lake Wakatipu. Renowned for its scenic beauty, Lake Wakatipu is being surrounded by mountains, and is a popular venue for adventure tourism. In recent years, Lake Wakatipu’s hotels have become a popular destination for tourists from all over the world. Among them, there are some hotels owned by Singaporeans. It is a pity that I could not share with you how gorgeous the scenery is, because no camera can capture it fully. However, the purpose of this trip is not for sightseeing. I was there to provide some feng shui advice to my friend who invested in a resort home by the lakes. Such a resort house with lake view in New Zealand only costs two to three million Singapore dollars, while the same house in Singapore will cost ten to twenty million Singapore dollars.

At Queenstown, we took a scenic flight onboard an 8-seater aircraft to enjoy a scenic view of the lake. As we circled and hovered above the glaciers, overlooking the lake beneath, we noticed the magnificent blue sky and beautiful clear water.

The mountains resemble conical formations and are most likely sculpted by the heavy snow and strong wind throughout the years. In the aspect of feng shui studies, it is not a favourable landform because of the steep peaks and flat mountain plains. Previously, I saw such a landform in China’s Changbai Mountain. The only difference lies in the absence of a crater lake due to the year-round presence of strong winds.

After a 45 minutes’ flight, we reached Milford Sound, a fjord in the southwest of New Zealand’s south island. After cruising along the fjord for over an hour, we came across magnificent scenery of the Danxia landform. The Danxia landform is usually spotted only at inland China region. Nonetheless, the unusual appearance of the Danxia landform at this adjoining lake and river is indeed magnificent!

Occasionally, tourists can admire dolphins, sea lions and the play of the wind with the numerous waterfalls. The falls never reach the bottom of Milford Sound, drifting away in the wind.

It says on the advertisement that this is a place that you cannot afford to miss! Will you visit this place again?

I would like to! This is an enjoyable destination whereby one can linger on without any thoughts and learning, and it is definitely a destination worth visiting again! Nevertheless, I will leave it to fate to decide if I will be back again!