April
4th April
I woke up the in the morning with the certainty that it had, in fact, snowed during the night. It was freezing. A quick look out of the tent flap failed to show any sign of snow however. I got dressed and Gabriel and I decided to go and have a hot shower down at the shower block.
As we stepped outside we could see that all the hilltops around us did in fact have a healthy dusting of snow that had not been there yesterday. We met a kiwi down at the shower block who was in Arrowtown for some amatuer prospecting. Like most of the locals we saw he was wearing shorts and a tshirt.
After we had warmed up with hot showers we had a big breakfast with bacon, eggs, toast and hot coffee. We packed up the tent and headed off to have a look at the centre of Arrowtown.
Arrowtown was established in 1862 after gold was discovered in the Arrow river. Some of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed around Arrowtown, notably some of the Isengard backdrops. Its quaint little main street is charming and we spent a very pleasant morning wandering through the various stores.
When had noticed on the way in to Arrowtown that we were only 40 kilometres from Queenstown so we decided that we would actually continue our trip and see what Queenstown had to offer.
As we drove along we found that the snowfall had been quite significant on many of the mountain tops. The drive was spectacular, majestic mountains with their snowy crowns, deep blue lakes, it was breathtaking.
Apparently the snow is unseasonal but a delight to a born and bred Western Australian. We arrived in Queenstown before mid day.
There is quite a bit of new development in and around Queenstown.
It was suprisingly busy. I had assumed that it would be quiet until the ski season started but we could barely find a parking spot in the town centre.
I should point out that Queenstown and Otago are going through something of a crisis trying to balance the desires of developers and the needs of the community. I, and I suspect any other visitor, would love to buy a slice of this paradise. However I would prefer to forgo that desire rather than see the degradation of these extraordinary views by unconstrained development.
Anyway we found a parking spot and headed down to the water front.
There is quite a bit of water based activity here on the waterfront. We noted signs for jet boating, jet skiiing, canoing and para sailing.
There were people everywhere. Queenstown is a tourist magnet with the opportunity to participate in a variety of extreme sports as well as skiing and snow boarding. There are little pubs, cafes and shops everywhere and towering over this bustling town are the most amazing mountains (including the aptly named "Remarkables").
We noticed, on a hill that overlooked the town, a gondola travelling up the hill. We decided to head for it for a look. It took about ten minutes to get to the gondola terminal from the centre of town. Gabriel and I decided to take a ride to the top to see the view.
It's a fairly steep ride up the hill but well worth it. At the top there is a restaurant, luge rides, a bungy swing and tourist stores. We took some photos from the observation deck where a sign warned us of an icy deck.
They weren't kidding. My Perth aclimatised bones just were not used to the cold here and we are still a couple of months from Winter.
The observation deck gave me a good opportunity to see the size of the town and some of the valley's and water ways around it. There is a definite air of excitement here and I'm looking forward to coming back in the snow season.
You can click on some of these photos to get a larger image.
Unfortunately we couldn't spend too much time here. This was really a scouting trip for a winter expedition. We promised some farming friends in Waimate that we would visit and we had a lot of travelling to do to get there.
On the way out of Queenstown we stopped beside a lake and had another coffee and a last look at the spectacular mountains and headed off.
It took us about four hours to reach Waimate where we spent a few hours chatting and having a snack with our friends on their lovely farm. We finally headed back for Christchurch around 8:00pm. We had some fish and chips along the way and made it home at around 11:30 pm.
Once again it had been a magical trip, one we will do again in Winter.
--Brook
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