Back in Auckland from Rotorua, we dropped the rent car at the airport and hopped an Air New Zealand flight from the far North Island to the lower South Island to the alpine resort town of Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu.
Queenstown lies on the shore of a Z-shaped lake in the Otago district of New Zealand, and surrounded by majestic mountains including The Remarkables. Known as the alps of New Zealand, the area boasts excellent ski areas that attract skiers from Australia and all over the world.
In the summer, Queenstown is a great vacation destination for all the activities available in the area. Boating, water skiing, jet boating, mountain biking, sky diving, ballooning, hiking, parasailing, paragliding, fly fishing plus easy access to the fjords of New Zealand including Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound.
Evening in Queenstown
Based on our TripAdvisor search for price and favorable reviews, we chose the Queenstown House B&B for our stay in Queenstown.
We checked into our room. Tim is obviously pleased with our accommodations.
Sitting area in our room at Queenstown House.
Our balcony at QT House, with Lake Wakatipu in the background.
View of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu from our room. It was cloudy the day we arrived.
Queenstown's first occupants were Maori people who migrated here seasonally from the coast. They came for the hunting and fishing in the summer months.
Among the first Europeans to settle this valley was welshman William Gilbert Rees. Tim is standing next to a statue of Rees who is considered the founder of Queenstown. Two years after Rees founded Queenstown, gold was discovered in the nearby Skipper's Canyon, leading Rees to convert his wool shed to a hotel catering the the sudden influx of prospectors and gold speculators. But more about that later.
Queenstown center boasts a network of quaint streets with trendy shops and cafes along the waterfront.
Photos of the waterfront area, the hub of activity in Queenstown. In the summer, QT bustles with backpackers, hikers, and other aficionados of outdoor activity--who also want great places to eat and drink beer at the end of an active day.
This is the Lake Lodge of Ophir, a Masonic Lodge dating to the 1800's
Historic St. Andrews anglican church.
One of the many cafes in QT offering beer, bar food, and live music.
After a tour of the town, we returned to the B&B for the 5:30 wine gathering. We sampled local Otago area wines and met our fellow tourists--nice folks from the US, Europe, Belgium, and Australia. Our arrival day in Queenstown ends with a bottle of local Otago region sauvignon blanc and an amazing view across the lake of the sunset from our room.
Adrenaline Day in Queenstown!
Next morning, we are greeted by a near cloudless sunrise and early-bird paragliders floating on the morning thermals. This is our day to explore the area around Queenstown and to join the many adrenaline seekers visiting the Lake Area.
We thought about a helicopter flight to Milford Sound, but decided instead on a shorter activity--jet boating on the Shotover River. We chose Skippers Canyon Jet for our excursion. This bus would take us over one of the twenty most dangerous roads in the world through Skippers Canyon to our launch site.
This is Dion, our bus driver/historian who drove us literally on the very edge of the old road into Skippers Canyon, holding the wheel with one hand while gesturing with the other and regaling us with tales of the history of Skippers Canyon. Looking down to the river 100 meters below, Tim was a little nervous!
As I mentioned, shortly after the founding of Queenstown, gold was discovered nearby with extensive finds in Skippers Canyon. Chronologically, the New Zealand gold rush was sandwiched in between the California gold rush and the Klondike gold rush in Alaska.
The road we drove on was built by those early prospectors to gain access to remote areas of the Shotover River where they found unbelievable amounts of gold in the river and surrounding rocks.
According to Dion, gold was of no value to the Maori people. It was soft and therefore useless for tools or weapons. And they didn't think it was particularly beautiful, opting instead for the plentiful local "greenstone" which we know as jade. Jade was harder and therefore better for tools and weapons. In addition, the Maori thought the greenstone was very beautiful, so they prized it for jewelry and currency as well. Gold? Who needs it?
The gold left lying around by the Maoris soon caught the eye of the early European settlers. Word spread quickly, and soon the area was swarming with gold bugs who were astounded to remove up to 3 ounces of gold per day simply by shoveling silt out of the river and panning it.
Here we are half way into the canyon making our way to the jet boat launch site. The landscape was breathtaking!
Part of the valley near Queenstown where Americans and others are paying up to $1M for a one-acre home site. Dion was disgusted.
The Kiwi actor Sam Neill owns a home below, and is a local wine producer as well. According to Dion, he is personable and well-liked. And he likes "coming home" because there are no paparazzi.
This rock outcropping on the way into the canyon was used in one of the Hobbit movies as the Gates of Orc.
Close up of the "Gates of Orc."
Continuing into Skippers Canyon, we passed this cabin, former home of the local female whisky vendor during the gold rush. Women were scarce in this, which was populated mainly by rough male gold bugs and prospectors. One particular woman found success importing and selling whisky to the gold bugs. This cabin was considered a real luxury in those days, because it was twice as large as most area homes. This meant it cost more to heat, but apparently whisky profits were good enough for the owner to enjoy luxurious living. The tall trees are Italian poplars, and not native to the region.
Just past "Whisky Cabin" we passed the ruins of the Welcome Home Hotel. This local inn catered to the needs of prospectors, not only by providing room and board, but also entertainment in the form of women tending bar. Local prospectors who had their own cabins often couldn't afford to heat them in the winter, so they spent evenings at the Welcome Home Hotel, which was warmed with wood stoves, whisky, and smiling women behind the bar.
An unforseen problem arose for the owner of the Welcom Home when prospectors became wealthy enough to begin to to think about buying farms and settling into a more usual lifestyle in the area. With bags of gold on their hips, they needed wives. The ladies who served whisky at the Welcome Home became likely targets, and were soon wooed away with the promise of marriage, gold, and financial stability. At one point, according to Dion, women were coming in and out of the Welcome Home faster than the owner could hire replacements.
One notable case related by Dion was that of a young woman who made it 6 days before she received a marriage proposal. Dion postulate that she lasted so long perhaps because she was, shall we say, one of the less pulchritudinous lassies!
At last, we sighted the stretch of the Shotover where we would be boating.
At the bottom of the canyon, we found the company's "portable" boat dock. One thing about the Kiwis, they are practical people!
Here we are fitted with life jackets ready for a boat ride.
Soon we heard the deep-throated roar of a good old American Chevrolet V-8 engine powering the jet boat back to the dock. The driver did a sideways spin at full speed, skimming the boat deftly up into a perfect "crash stop" at the edge of the portable dock. This would be our boat.
Powered by a 450 HP V-8 gas engine and fitted with a Hamilton jet drive, these boats are perfect for navigating the shallow Shotover River. The jet drive was invented by a Kiwi, Sir William Hamilton, who drew upon previously failed jet drive systems to develop a jet drive specifically for use on the Shotover. These boats need only 4 inches of water and function very well without a propeller to drag on the rocks. Another advantage of the Hamilton jet drive is its maneuverability. The shallow draft boats can zip, spin, and skim sideways at high speed in shallow waters--as we would soon find out!
This is Ben our boat driver. He's giving us the safety briefing before we take off. He looks fourteen years old! After the safety briefing, he admitted that his co-workers call him "The Novice." He didn't give us any time digest this tidbit of information or to opt to disembark before he hit the throttle!
Here we are flying down the river. Directly ahead lies a long-abandoned steel boat hull from the mining days. These photos don't do justice to the adrenaline rush of skimming up the river frighteningly close to the rock walls of the canyon! We were grinning and yelling our way up the river!
The other maneuver easily accomplished by the Hamilton jet drive is the mid-river spin. Without slowing down, Ben would whip the wheel and spin the boat completely around, kicking up a generous spray of water. I spun out in a Corvette once, and the sensation is similar!
At one point, the miners decided to change the course of the Shotover to make it easier to pan for gold. They built a flat steel platform that for a time did alter the water flow. However, after the first flood, this is all that's left of their attempt to over power Mother Nature.
A beautiful waterfall in the canyon.
After half an hour of flying along the river with the wind in our hair, we returned to the dock somewhat soaked by the spray from the spins. We were soon headed back out of the canyon. Here is a view of the crystal clear Shotover River from the canyon wall above. Beautiful and pristine. The water is still drinkable directly from the river.
Tim, smiling and dried out again, admires the view of the canyon from an observation deck. This is truly majestic country!
Afternoon and Evening in Queenstown
Back from the canyon adventure, it's time for lunch. Tim ordered the venison burger. We were warned that Kiwis like to put sliced beet on their hamburgers, but we forgot. So here is Tim with a venison/beet burger. It was actually pretty good!
I chose the traditional fish and chips. Yum!
Dining along the waterfront.
A couple of boats available for cruises around Lake Wakatipu.
Queenstown waterfront in full afternoon sun. Beautiful!
After a shower and another wine reception with the other guests at Queenstown House B&B, we headed to a highly rated local restaurant, Botswana Butchery.
If you look at restaurants ratings on TripAdvisor, the top 8 or 10 are those that cater to the "backpacker crowd"--pizza, cafeteria, kebabs, hamburgers, Mexican food. Botswana Butchery is definitely not one of those!
Bar area at Botswana Butchery.
Elegant dining area.
First up: a martini gleaming in the afternoon sun!
Prawn bisque with a shared tempura soft-shell crab. Delicious with a bottle of local wine from Cloudy Bay vineyard. We followed up with a salmon filet and lamb strap back, but--oops!--I forgot to take photos! Maybe it was the martini....
After dinner, we are drawn back to the waterfront--the heart of energy in Queenstown. The day's activities are over, the sun is setting, the air is cooling, and it's time for the fun to begin!
The thermals accelerate as the setting sun slants through the evening air. The paragliders can't resist jumping off the top of the mountain at the Skyline Gondola overlook.
During the day, the paragliders land at the rugby field below our B&B. But at sunset, they land at the beach--to the delight of spectators.
Coming in a little low! Tootsies up to avoid a water landing!
And this one's down!
Another impromptu evening activity: pole dancing on the beach!
These Kiwis! Such fun-loving people!
Sunset is upon us, and the end of another fun-filled day in Queenstown. Wish we had another day to enjoy this delightful area! We definitely would return for another visit.
And from our room, our second QT sunset.
Tomorrow we head back to Auckland to board the Holland America cruise to Sydney. We're ready for the next leg in our South Pacific adventure!
