Giveaways
FIRST, take a cruise on the 1912-vintage Lake steamer TSS Earnslaw to Walter Peak Station for lunch and a tour of the farm park, or, better still,for dinner on a long summer evening.
TSS is short for Twin Screw Steamer: it means that the vessel has two propellors ('screws') and that it is, indeed, powered by steam.
I've got a blog post about the Earnslaw with more pictures and video, called 'History in Motion: Travelling through Time on the TSS Earnslaw'.
Second, go up the Skyline Gondola to the Skyline Restaurant,which is perched on a crag 450 metres or nearly 1,500 feet above Queenstown. The crag is called Bob’s Peak, though oddly enough there is an official Bobs Peak in quite a different location near Moke Lake (pronounced 'Mokeh'), which is among the other attractions I'm gong to be talking about here.
There’s a luge and other amusements next to the Skyline Restaurant; and you can also head into the back country from this point to ascend a mountain called Ben Lomond of which the local Bob's Peak is actually a spur, or to get to the aforementioned Moke Lake. More on that below!
A Māori tale describes how Hākitekura, the courageous and athletic daughter of the local rangatira, or chief, Tuwiriroa of the Kāti [Ngāti] Māmoe iwi, once clambered to the approximate location of today's Skyline Restaurant to get a good view of local landmarks, and plot her direction accordingly, before swimming across the lake and lighting a fire on the other side, just to show that it was possible to do so! This is said to have happened in the early 1700s by the Western calendar.
For that reason, Ben Lomond and its slopes down as far as the suburb of Fernhill, below the level of the Skyline Restaurant, are known as Te-Taumata-o-Hākitekura in Māori: the observation place of Hākitekura.
Third, visit amazing colonial Arrowtown and its well-regarded museum!
Fourth, there’s the Bobs Cove area and Twelve Mile Delta, much less than twelve miles west of Queenstown in spite of its name, which has some amazing views of its own, and which also includes historical lime kilns and Lord of the Rings filming sites.
Fifth, other good viewpoints close to town include Queenstown Hill and, elsewhere, Deer Park Heights, a private venture where you can also get to see llamas.
Sixth, you can visit Moke Lake, a name that means 'solitary', in the hills behind Queenstown, and hike the Moonlight Track back to the suburb of Arthurs Point on the Shotover River just outside Queenstown.
It’s on the road to Moke Lake that you go past the other Bobs Peak, confusingly.
This Bob who pops up all over the place, by the way, was Robert Fortune, who captained a lake-boat for William Gilbert Rees: an early founder of Queenstown whose downtown statue beside that of an intelligent-looking sheep seems to indicate that, yes, people really do grow to resemble their pets.
Seventh, you can take the Shotover Jet jetboats from Arthurs Point up the Shotover Gorge. Interestingly enough, the spot from where the jet boats take off, under the interesting and historic Edith Cavell Bridge, has all sorts of multi-coloured pebbles in the water, instead of just the usual grey ones. This is because of the region’s wealth of minerals: of which more, below.
Eighth, Queenstown is also where the whole modern bungy jumping craze also began. You can bungy jump off the original bridge where it all started, an old disused bridge on a gorge of the Kawarau River, just east of town.
Ninth, you can drive to the top of the lake and take in the café society of Glenorchy and Kinloch, head up the Paradise Valley to Arcadia Station and the guest accommodation run by the Paradise Trust.
Check out the ParadiseTrust’s amazing website: paradisetrust.co.nz. If that doesn’t make you want to go there, I don’t know what will!
The real-life top of Lake Wakatipu is a fascinating area, not to be confused with the misleading impression created by the British drama Top of the Lake. It’s a place where many tramping tracks begin and return. I’ve got blog posts on the Rees-Dart Track, the Caples-Greenstone Track and the Routeburn Track, all of which start from here. But even without embarking on those multi-day tours, it’s possible to hike closer to the lake in the Whakaari Conservation Area.
This area includes disused scheelite mine workings, relics of yet another extractive activity.
There is occasional talk of starting the scheelite industryup again, but these proposals are very controversial. It seems that people prefer to admire this sort of thing from a distance of years, rather than have it going on in their backyard right now.
Tenth, though I don’t really recommend it, on a good day, when the ground is perfectly dry and firm, you may care to hazard a drive (pun intended) on the Skippers Canyon Road, a narrow gravel road incised into the side of a cliff as if with the end of a ruler.
If you’ve watched one of those docos about the road of death in Bolivia or whatever it’s called, well, the Skippers is like that. Check it out here on the international Dangerous Roads website before you drive, assuming the image at the top of the article does not put you off!
dangerousroads.org/australia-and-oceania/new-zealand/55-skippers-canyon-road-new-zealand.html
Dangerous Roads says that "Skippers Road is mostly one-way, narrow and steep with sheer drops of several hundred metres." Which suggests that it is exactly like that road in Bolivia. On the other hand, "The journey offers superb views" and is, in that sense, "a drive not to be missed!" Though how you take in the views and drive safely at the same time, I'm not sure.
There's a book called Doctor in the Mountains by William A. Anderson, an old-time GP who was Mayor of Queenstown for a while, and after whom a pleasant suburban park, halfway up one of Queenstown's steep hills, is named.
The parks of Queenstown are an eleventh thing to check out, by the way: from the little vest-pocket William Anderson Park to the massive Queenstown Gardens and the family-run Kiwi Birdlife Park close to the lower entrance of the Skyline Gondola.
Anyhow, back in the day, some of Dr Anderson's patients lived at places that could only be got to via the Skippers, and would develop urgent complaints in the middle of the night, often when the weather was bad (it's one thing to drive the road on a sunny day . . .). Dr Anderson records how he would arrive in the pitch dark with his knees shaking, as he put it.
Your insurance may not be valid for this road, which is often excluded on Kiwi policies.
All the same, some adventure tourism buses use the Skippers to get to their destinations: an adventure in itself.
Finally, I should add that there are lots of other things you could spend money on in the Queenstown area. I’ve been focusing on things that are either fairly cheap, free, or must-dos in compiling this list. I’ve really only scratched the surface of some of the more expensive, wild, or exclusive things that go on in the area. Nor have I mentioned the skifields!
For more of Queenstown's touristy attractions, check out my further blog post 'Queenstown: Tourism Capital' and some of the posts linked at the end of that one. Just don't click on the link that will take you back here!
Discover Queenstown: queenstownnz.co.nz
If you liked the post above, check out my book about the South Island! It's available for purchase from this website.
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