About Queenstown
Queenstown grew from a gold rush settlement in the 1860s, when prospectors flocked to the area chasing fortunes. As the gold faded, its dramatic setting beside Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables mountains ensured it found a second life as a tourism hub.
Today it’s known as New Zealand’s adventure capital — a place where bungy jumping, jet boating and skiing sit alongside great food and lakefront views. It’s lively, scenic and just a little bit adrenaline-fuelled — a town that thrives on both natural beauty and a taste for excitement. 🏔️
An Unexpected Journey
We left Lake Tekapo at 10am for a 3 hour drive to Queenstown. With check-in at our next accommodation not until 3pm we had bags of time and intended to take a leisurely drive and stop a few times.
Our first pull over was at Lake Pukaki, another breathtaking spot where the lake was framed by snow capped mountains. We crunched across stones, boulders and the occasional Chinese tourist to reach the waters edge, which was both crystal clear and freezing cold. Ideal for open water swimming if you are so inclined, which we are not.
We decided on a brief coffee stop at the delightfully named Twizel, and noticed a supermarket where we could get a few bits and bobs. Little did we know how costly that shop would prove to be.
We pressed on and reached Lindis Pass, a lookout where we also planned a brief photo stop. However, cars were backed up just before the car park. It turned out there had been a car smash, and it wasn’t long before emergency services started to arrive.
Word filtered down that the road would be closed for 2 hours. It was 1pm by now, and we had 1 hour to our next stop, Cromwell, then another hour to Queenstown. We had a conundrum – sit it out, or drive back an hour to the nearest town where at least there were facilities and when the road reopens, drive the same 1 hour leg back to where we had already reached.
We decided to sit it out. We wandered around, took some photos, chatted with other drivers. Around 3pm, word came down that the road would be closed for at least 5 more hours. What! Google maps determined the only detour was 5.5 hours.
Even if we again sat it out, we still had 2 hours drive to Queenstown, and were looking at arriving between 8 & 9pm, but that was assuming the road did reopen.
We felt we had no choice but to take the detour, given at least there would be facilities along the way. So off we set on one of the most frustrating drives we have ever undertaken.
Having left at 10am we finally rolled into Queenstown just before 9pm where we were so knackered we ordered a KFC from Uber Eats and hit the sack.
As a footnote, the road did reopen in the evening and we would have made Queenstown about an hour later. The difference was that we would have been very thirsty, very hungry and would have had to pee in the bushes.
We will always wonder if we hadn’t popped into that supermarket might we have just sailed on through.
A change of plan
On our first full day we had planned nothing more than a scenic drive of the region. Given we had seen much of the South Island the previous day, that idea was quickly scrapped in favour of a mooch around Queenstown.
With some laundry chores out of the way, we set off down the hill into town and a lovely brunch at Yonder. We then walked down to the lake, which was a hive of activity, and we both got that gut feeling that this was going to be our sort of place. Over the next few hours of wandering, stopping for a beer and moving on again, we agreed that it was our favourite spot, possibly of the entire trip.
We booked a table for the evening at Boardwalk, and as we were looking around Steamer Wharf discover an Ice Bar that we also booked for pre-dinner drinks.
After getting an Uber back to the apartment (we did say it was DOWN hill into town), and getting ready, we Ubered again (yesterday was catching up with us by now) and the Ice Bar was visited. You get an hour in minus five degrees and 2 cocktails, with fleece coats provided. Unfortunately neither of us wore socks but we managed to hang it out for 50 minutes of our 1 hour slot before taking our leave.
We had a lovely meal at Boardwalk, although were frustrated that in a half empty restaurant they had given away the table we specifically asked for when we booked.
It turns out that Queenstown, unlike many places we have visited, actually has something of a nightlife. We had nightcaps on Perkys, a boat bar moored in the harbour, and eventually turned in feeling that we had had a proper night out.
On Tuesday we had a tour booked in the afternoon and decided to have a lake cruise in the morning on the TSS Earnshaw.
TSS Earnshaw
Launched in 1912, the TSS Earnslaw has been sailing Lake Wakatipu for over a century, originally transporting sheep, supplies and passengers to remote high-country stations. It’s one of the last remaining coal-fired passenger steamships in the Southern Hemisphere.
Today the “Lady of the Lake” runs scenic cruises from Queenstown, complete with working steam engines and panoramic alpine views. Many trips include a stop at Walter Peak Farm, but even just being onboard feels like stepping back in time — with a whistle, a plume of steam, and mountains all around. 🚢
We love a boat trip, and this one didn’t disappoint, the highlight being able to see down into the engine room, and watch the crew shovelling coal into the furnace. There was also a lady playing a piano, a full bar and cafe, an onboard museum and tons of deckspace from which to relax and take in the scenery and the sunshine. Brilliant trip.
Trails of Middle Earth
Once back in port we headed to our booked tour, a Lord of The Rings special ‘Trails of Middle Earth‘ as Queenstown and the surrounding country was used for many of the scenes in the films, in fact ‘The Remarkables’ range, which is the backdrop to Queenstown, got nicknamed ‘The Reusables’ as it was used over and over again throughout the three films.
There were 8 of us on the tour plus our guide Ian, and as we set off we had to intro ourselves, just our name, where we were from and our ‘Nerd’ rating as it relates to the LoTR. There were strict rules. Steve only got 2, which equated to you’ve watched one of the films but fell asleep in it. Nikki got a 7, watched the films and read the books. Having a LoTR tattoo would have got an eight, having read The Silmarillion got you a 9 and to get a 10 you had to be able to converse in one of the languages. We had a 9 on the bus, Irina from Ukraine.
The tour was fascinating even if you are not a LoTR fan, and it felt like you were ‘on location’ sometimes. There were lots of stories around the making of the films. For example, on the day production was due to start, Queenstown experienced some of the worst flooding in living memory, and it was impossible to start filming. After urgent re-planning meetings, they hired 2 squash courts at a local sport centre and turned them into indoor studios. They managed to film half of a scene, but then the weather improved and they needed to get back outside, so they postponed the other half of the scene. Cutting a long story short, they rented the 2 courts for over a year before they were able to return and film the other half of the scene! No wonder LoTR was most expensive film ever made at the time.
Amother story was the difficulty Peter Jackson had getting studios to back the project, mainly because he saw it as 2 films and that was outside normal studio parameters. Eventually NewLine stepped in but insisted it needed to be 3 films, which eventually Jackson agreed to. Smart move as the production exceeded $280m but to date has earned over $3billion. Not a bad ROI.
Back in Queenstown, a quick change and back down the hill for our final night, which was also St. Patrick’s day. We had a fine meal at ‘Captains‘ which included local venison for the first time in NZ. We didn’t stay out late though as we were a bit pooped after our days excursions.
Nikki finds the ‘One Ring’
Hamish says ...
Quenstown turned out to be one of our favourite stops of our whole tour.
Our apartment at Pounamu was fanstastic, if not a bit quirky (they call it a retreat but it ovelooks a busy road). It was lovely and spacious, and had the all important washing machine needed to catch up on chores.
Queenstown is not quite as beautiful as Lake Tekapo, but it makes up for that with the amazing vibe that exists in the town, with such an incredible amount to see and do.
We think it is able to achieve this because it effectively has 2 seasons – there is the summer season, that starts in Spring and ends in Autumn which is all about the lake and trails and what you do on them; then it has a full-blown Winter ski season. As such, you can open a hospitality business in Queenstown knowing that if you are good, you will have year round customers.
We would highly recommend Queenstown. Steve felt another couple of nights there would have been great as it felt like we only scratched the surface. This time, Nikki agreed.
What's next
We head back across to the East coast but as planned this time, not out of necessity.
We are spending a couple of nights in the Otago port of Dunedin. We are just hoping there are no road problems on our 4 hour drive.
Incidentally, it is probably worth at this point mentioning the weather. We have virtually seen non stop cloudless blue skies, which has been a welcome relief from all of the rain in Australia. The only other difference of course is that in spite of the sun, the temperatures are 15c lower than Queensland, so its not really sunbathing weather. Nonetheless we feel we have been very lucky in our NZ jaunt.