After the solitude of Mavora Lakes, we then moved to Queenstown, the Adventure Capital of New Zealand. Queenstown is a hustling, bustling town of about 30,000 residents and lord knows how many tourists. It is located on the northern end of Lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables mountains in the background. It is a mix between Boulder (and has its own version of the Pearl St. Mall, but this one ends at the lake), Breck, Vail and Burlington, Vt. It is home to the most amazing collection of action activity vendors and everything is $200+. Even a guided day walk costs $180. But there is bungy jumping, canyon swings, ziplining, rafting, jet boat rides, skydiving, parasailing, paraflights over the lake, mountain biking, skiing, luge, ice skating, canyoning, fly fishing, Frisbee golf, cruises on the lake, visits to a farm for sheep shearing demos, etc., etc., etc. These people have thought of more ways to take lots of money off of lots and lots of people very quickly. The downtown is not unlike Boulder’s, with about 20% outdoor stores, 20% bars, 20% restaurants, 20% adventure broker sites and 20% clothing stores.
Queenstown’s “Pearl street mall”
The wharf.
The Remarkables mountains from town.
Thrill seekers.
Our first day in Queenstown was grey and rainy so we spent the day wandering around downtown, drinking our first Starbucks coffee in months, looking at a bogus aquarium thing on the lake, and walking through Queenstown Gardens, with the Frisbee golf course, the rose garden, the lawn bowling courts and a great view of the harbor, with all of the many crazy boats going in and out. The next day, we tried to drive up to the Remarkables ski area, to start a hike from the base lodge area, but the road was closed after about 4km. It was also amazingly cold and windy up there, so we took the chicken’s choice and went for the Queenstown Hill Walk, just up the street from our motel. This actually ended up being a very steep walk of about 90 minutes up, up, up and with great views at the top. So it ended up being a nice choice.
Barb on the Queenstown Hill Walk.
The next few pictures are of Queenstown as we moved up the hill.
Lake Wakatipu from the hike. It is a beautiful lake and we were told the second cleanest lake in the world. You can safely drink the water.
The Remarkables mountains from the summit.
Our next day we decided to attend the New Zealand Rural Games, which were going on that weekend. Much to our surprise, it was Waitangi Weekend in NZ, apparently a bit similar to our July 4. So it was a long holiday weekend with lots of stuff going on around town, including these rural games. Apparently, while we hiked up Queenstown Hill the prior day, they ran 300 sheep through the middle of the town. Imagine, if you will, 300 sheep running down Spruce Street in Boulder! But we missed it, as we were hiking and oblivious. But that night we went to an amazing restaurant, Rata, and had a wonderful night out.
We got up early to see the sheepdog trials – with teams from the North and South Island competing against each other. Each team consisted of 4 sets of a dog handler with his two sheep dogs. Each handler and dogs would go out on the soccer field with 6 sheep. They had to get the sheep through a couple of gates, over a little bridge, split the sheep into 2 groups of 3 sheep and then get 3 sheep into two different holding pens. The hard part was splitting the sheep as they really did want to be together and the dogs would get them split onto two ends of the field and while the handler and one dog worked on getting 3 sheep into one pen, the other dog was supposed to keep the 3 remaining sheep from dashing back to their friends. This often proved to be quite difficult, with many competitors have to repeat the splitting multiple times. They got scored on some point system we didn’t understand but it was fun to watch the dogs in action.
The sheep dogs were amazing.
Then came the Scottish rural games, with teams from NZ against Australia. They each did the throw the pole thing, the carry heavy log thing, and the put the big stones on the barrel thing. All dressed in kilts. On the other end of the field, there was a coal shoveling competition, where they had to shovel half a ton of coal into a bin. The winner did it in 19 seconds. We got hungry and left and so missed the gumboot throw.
The caber toss.
Those logs looked might heavy.
The next day, we drove south along the lake to Glenorchy, a little town at the end of the lake, and then on to the other end/start of the Routeburn track. This was a spectacular walk, first following a turquoise colored river up, up gradually, to the Routeburn Flats hut, where we sat by the river and ate lunch. Then we headed up to the Routeburn Falls hut but this was a steep climb up the to falls. The DOC hut was built right next to the falls and had about 50 bunks. In summer, you can get a bunk at the hut for $54. Right above it, though, was a lodge about twice as big, a lodge where a commercial guiding group brings hikers up. For the small price of $1370, you can do a 3 day, two night hike, sharing a bunk with 5 others while in their lodges. We went the cheap way – we just hiked in for the day and called it great!
This is a video of Lake Wakatipu as we drove to the Routeburn track.
The next few pictures are of the Routeburn track.
They were working on the trail.
The Flats where we stopped and had lunch.
The Flats hut.
The Falls hut which was another hour from the Flats hut.
We made it to the Falls hut.
The next day, we packed up all of our junk and headed out to Central Otago, to Alexandra. But on the way we stopped to watch the bungy jumpers at the Kawarau Bridge, the first commercial bungy site in the world. Over 100,000 people have jumped off that bridge. We got photos and drove on…
