Queenstown 2016

What's covered?

Queenstown is one of the bigger cities on South Island and a major tourist area.

30 October

En route to Queenstown we stopped for coffee at the Paringa Salmon Farm Cafe and Knights Point Lookout before reaching Haast. The journey to Haast was slow because of the roads but there was good scenery. After Haast it became spectacular, a world class journey.

We stopped at Makorara for lunch and the Queenstown Lookout en route as we passed through the Crown Ranges.

We had a suite allocated at the St Moritz Hotel which was nice as we were there for four days. We went for a walk around town after which we discovered just how steep the footpath back to the hotel is.

31 October

The weather looked set to be good so we decided to do the gondola trip first. Excellent views and we found a fleece vest at a reasonable price. Although dry and sunny today, the weather was still typically colder than it should have been and than what we had expected.

Back in town we found a jacket in Kathmandu that worked with some of my short sleeved tops so we bought that and an umbrella.

We then went on the Queenstown Scenic Cruise on Lake Wakatipu. The boat stopped at Bob's Cove and Mount Nicholas Farm.

After that we had another wander around town, enquired about the Nomad Safari to Glen Orchy (Lord of the Rings location) and both had a drink before returning to the hotel.

1 November

The weather forecast for the afternoon was showers so we put off the Nomad Safari until tomorrow. Instead we went to Arrowtown. This was originally a gold mining town but when the seams were exhausted, it fell into disrepair. In the 1950s renovation started to make it a tourist attraction.

It is typical of an American mining town and now is mostly shops and restaurants but nonetheless worth a visit. Many of the shops sold possum and merino wool clothes and needless to say they were expensive, albeit very nice. We looked around the World War 2 exhibition at the museum and then went for coffee at the Postmasters Restaurant next to the still working Post Office. After looking around some more shops we found the Dorothy Brown Cinema. Ann at Hokitika had told us about this cinema so we booked to see Tom Hanks in Inferno and ordered the cheeseboard for the intermission. It is a small cinema with the larger screen having perhaps no more than 75 seats. It proved to be a good idea as when we came out it had clearly been raining.

We returned to the hotel and stayed in for dinner.

2 November

Based on the weather forecast we booked the Glenorchy trip for 1.30 and decided we would leave for town about 11ish for a walkaround and lunch.

We went to Khatmandu to buy another jacket, same style as the other one but in a different colour. After a nice lunch at Pier 19 we went to Nomad Safaris for our trip to Glenorchy. Our driver/guide was Jinny and she was accompanied by Wendy who was being trained. Jinny knew the filming scenes very well and explained them to Gill who is the Lord of the Rings lover. She also knew how to handle the Toyota! This was a $120,000 vehicle that made a Land Cruiser look tame.

We were dropped off at the hotel for our last evening here before moving on tomorrow.