Planning My Kiwimoon

Finally, I'm done transferring all 4724 pictures + videos from the two cameras we brought for our honeymoon!!!Not inclusive of the 281 videos I took just from my iPhone. That's like an average of almost 312 per day. But really, no surprise here cos hello it's New Zealand we're talking about?!

Everywhere we go, we get to see pretty views like this....

or this..

and this!

We just want to pull over every ten mins, take out the camera and record everything we see!

Even cows. hahaha #jakun

NEW ZEALAND IS BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL♥

I must say we had the time of our lives there. We were concerned about our safety initially, espesh after the earthquakes that took place a few weeks before our arrival. Thank God we went for it anyway and Alhamdulillah we didn't experience anything unpleasant :D

I'm going to break my honeymoon posts into many different parts and the first is, as the title suggests, I'm sharing how I go about with the planning. Hopefully it will be helpful to some of you who may be planning yours too!

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First and foremost, I would like to give a huge thank you to my girlfriend Raudah for helping me with my itinerary and all the bookings! My schedule was really tight during the planning stage, with my house, the wedding and work coming together so I totally have no time to do all the research and whatnot.

Working with Raudah was a breeze, and we communicated through emails to keep the danna in the loop. I gave her a brief idea of what I want to do for each day in NZ, and she helped me with the planning of the routes, sourcing out for accommodations etc. Once we gave her the green lights to her proposed detailed itinerary, she went ahead and book everything within next 24 hrs.

So if you're planning to travel and need extra help to plan your own itinerary, you can check out her FB page here! She has  also helped Tina with her recent Maldives trip and bestie Ira with her honeymoon.

Itinerary 

Our sixteen days in South Island NZ is divided into three different parts........

29 Nov - 3 Dec

#1.The Survivor + Fear Factor + Amazing Race

The first day in NZ, we drove (okayyy not me, just the poor danna. I can't drive for nuts!) a total of more than 7 hours to our motel in Fox Glaciers, only to find out that the reception closes early(6 pm! 9 pm when we got there).Thank God, after making some calls we were able to settle in at last. It was 7 pm when we realised about the closing hrs and so we were rushing like it was one crazy amazing race. Not only was the road super curvy but it's really dark out there without any street lights!

The next few days we did a lot of hiking which is a terribly crazy thing to do. We got lost every single day, not only on the road but in the woods too! I remember it was close to sunset and it's getting dark, and I told myself I'm ready to surrender to fate and just die in here lolol.

Oh and I called this the Survivor phase cos most of the time we slept in our campervan, which I don't exactly enjoy. Well, sleeping inside the campervan is not the problem, sharing the shower area IS. You really don't have to know me that well to know how fussy I am about using the public toilets.........

Not exactly the dream honeymoon for many people out there but I kinda love it! I've learned so much about danna just by watching the way he handles the tough situations we were faced with back there.

4 - 7 Dec

#2. The Photoshoot

So this is the part where Fiq joined us. It was the danna's idea to have him with us for the trip and I'm so glad he agreed!

We also had a few fear factor moments - like doing the skydive(hands down craziest part of the trip!!!!), hiking up Mt Iron after that and then got lost trying to look for our campervan. We ended up having to walk for more than 4km along the dark streets. After which, the poor danna had to drive for more than 2 hours back to our glamping, while Fiq and I slept throughout the journey back:p

and lastly,

13 - 14 Dec

#3. The REAL honeymoon!

Probably my fav part of the whole trip. Cos most of the time we're quite relaxed, doing just one activity a day and enjoying our couple time together. ♥♥♥

Transportation

We were torn between getting a car and a campervan. Well I prefer the former mainly cos I don't want to sleep inside a campervan at night and I prefer a comfortable motel. But in the end, we chose....

The Happy 3 from Happy Campers!

It's really small yet cozier than it looks. and it took us quite a while to get used to maneuvering around this tight space. Fiq shared the van with us for one night and it was hilarious seeing how he either keeps hitting his head or falling down from his "bed" above ours LOL

More details on the campervan here.

Okayyy, signing off with one of my fav picture out of the thousands...

Love this man so much.♥

xoxo, N