Spectacular Queenstown
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
By Jim Houston. Part 3:
“From Wanaka we traveled south to Queenstown. A narrow (all roads in NZ are narrow) road that finally took us to a snow covered pass looking down the mountains to Queenstown and the lake. The road was along an old mining track and half way was “Jacksons”, a historic hotel that boasted whitebait sambos. A great way to do morning tea- fresh whitebait sandwich on soft white bread and a cup of good coffee. The drive down to the valley was interesting with a very old section of switchbacks at the end. Arrowtown was a great diversion before Queenstown. A quaint gold mining town with a great museum. It appears to get no sunlight in winter and was covered by a thick white frost. There were still some Chinese dwellings from the gold rush days. Shouting out that the Chinese were very much second class citizens.
The caravan park at Queenstown was large, busy and well equipped. But our hearts were yearning for the calm of Wanaka. We returned to Wanaka on the road that took us up the east of Lake Wanaka and past Cromwell. Once again we were stumped for superlatives to describe the beauty of the scenery. More bloody snow capped mountains, more bloody crystal clear streams and rolling green hills”.-Jim Houston, Yeronga, Australia. June 2007