I have always been dreaming of New Zealand and watching The Lord of the Rings intensified the excitement of setting my feet on the country. With the help of Mileage Plus my dream comes true this Christmas. We boarded the plane on the night of December 23. We touched down at Christchurch in the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

The dragging 10+ hours flight and 5 hours time different showed no mercy and brutally jetlagged us. And to make it worst, I made a foul mistake to book a stick-shift car. I had not been driving any manual car in 10 years and the stick was on the opposite side. Whatever, I felt the clutch and we hit the road. Our first stop was Lake Tekapo, 3 hours from Christchurch.

Our fatigue vaporised as our eyes met the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of the South Island. We were stunned in awe at the azure sky, the vast landscapes, the snow-capped alpines and the crystal-clear lakes. For a second, we thought we had landed on another planet.

Alike our other trips, the rain followed us. Half of the journey we were accompanied with heavy rainpours. We heard the news about the tsunami on the Boxing day from other tourists and we did not realize the severity until seeing the dreadful images on CNN.