Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place, hugging the lakeside & surrounded by mountains. But after Wanaka, well, it was not as nice, and a bit much. The so-called adventure capital of the world is constantly screaming at you to go jet boating (which I thought was weird, until I was told the first marine jet motors were developed in New Zealand) and bungee jumping (again, a Kiwi first) and skydiving and off-roading and go, go, go! It was a very dense vacation area - tons of condos, a place to descend upon, have an urgent holiday experience via one of the multitude of activity operators, and then hurry away from. So good for some, but not perfect for us.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. From Wanaka, we drove over the Crown Pass, which wasn't even paved until 2000. It is now the higest paved road in New Zealand, though it just barely cracks 1000m so it's not really very high. But the descent into the Queenstown area does have many tight twisties.
Looking towards Arrowtown and then Queenstown beyond it.
Queenstown has a little beach in front of the downtown area - though many times smaller and many times more densely populated than Wanaka's. And there's a nice little treed park beside it. And a ton of cafes and touristy shops and such in the town itself. All fighting to be seen among the adventure day-trip offices.
You see that Carol? That's a near-circular peninsula that's one big, lovely golf course. The mountains in the background are The Remarkables, otherwise known as the mountains of Mordor in Lord Of The Rings. But I'm SURE you wouldn't have enjoyed playing it...
The city park is planted mostly with BC-style (non-native) Douglas Fir trees, plus the odd sequoia from California.
I finally tried my first legitimate meat pie - a big Kiwi/Aussie thing, and a very filling snack. All of their meat pies have a tough enough crust that you can eat them by hand.
Sarah's finely tuned popcorn nose perked up in downtown Queenstown, and sure enough there was a theatre nearby. And it was playing The Hobbit in 2D (everywhere else had been 3D-only up to this point). And it was starting in 2 minutes. So we watched the latest Middle Earth film in the land where it was filmed. I have to say, having been in New Zealand for a while, a bit of the magic of the landscape in the movie disappeared for us. Before, we saw a temperate forest with a very unique look - lots of alternately straight and gnarled and large and small-leafed trees, like nothing we'd seen before - very magical. But now, "oh, that's a New Zealand forest." :-)
We tired of Queenstown after not very long, so hopped over to Arrowtown. It's a beautiful, tiny town full of touristy but pretty and quaint cafes and shops. Nice for a quick walk around.
Arrowtown was supposed to have a brewpub, but it was recently shut down. Can't win 'em all.
Back in Queenstown, we grabbed a beer on the waterfront, and contemplated the giant kiwi statue.
For dinner, we got a burger at the iconic, near-famous and fabulously busy Fergburger. It was a great burger, but probably better to go at slower times of the day.
We drove Hal a few kilometres past town to a DOC campsite for the night, and I had a quick dip in the lake. Followed by watching the full moon rise behind some clouds.
The big campsite was full of other campervans (being so close to town), so we ate breakfast (and I went for a morning dip) a little way down the road at a more private and pleasant pull-out by the water. Which was probably my favourite part of our Queenstown day.
Queenstown was worth a look, and admittedly we didn't have time to do any hiking in the area. But I still think that unless you want an all-organized-activity or all-party-at-the-small-club type of vacation, a quick look is all it really deserves, relative to everything else New Zealand has to offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment