Queenstown Winter Festival cancelled due to snow!

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Toboggan boy

This snow isn't slippery enough

We felt suitably proud of ourselves, having made it over to Queenstown and beaten the weather, but our spirits were dampened slightly as we checked into one of the most expensive campsites in NZ at $32/night + $1 per shower… criminal. To add to our joy at being in an expensive town, we discovered to our absolute amazement that the fireworks and parade planned to celebrate the start of the annual winter festival had been cancelled due to the snow……unbelievable!!! We were beginning to question NZ’s and in particular Queenstown’s claim to be the ‘Adventure Capital of the World!’

Feeling pretty disgruntled and despite more dire warnings from the locals we decided to move out of the big smoke to cheaper accommodation, driving 20km’s northeast to Arrowtown. We easily got out there with the help of the chains and were beginning to doubt any advice given to us about road conditions and feeling increasingly confident with our own and the campervan’s abilities to get around. Arrowtown was yet another old gold town, but one that had survived once the initial rush was over and now catered for tourists heading to nearby Cadrona skifield and who wanted a quieter alternative to party Queenstown. We felt quite at home in the virtually deserted campsite and set about finding a good tobogganing hill to make the most of the snow and make up for the fact we had decided to not go skiing. A friendly local guy sent us up the nearby Tobin Track, which gave us great views back over Arrowtown and with a bit of human pulling power we managed some sort of sledging.

On Monday morning after a couple of days chilling out and writing blogs, we decided to head back to Queenstown and check out the latest status of the festival. We discovered that the fireworks had been rescheduled for the following night, so after visiting Ezyrentals for some new snow chains (we’d managed to break one of the others), we stocked up with food and headed towards ‘Paradise’ picking up a hitch-hiker on the way. Yep that’s right, if you follow the northern shore of Lake Wakatipu you pass Glenorchy after about 40k’s and carry on a bit further and you’ll find yourself in Paradise. Well I have to say it was pretty nice, although possibly a bit nippy to be described as ‘paradise’ at that time of year. Heading further up the Dart River valley, we followed the 4x4 track for a while, but it was starting to get decidedly off-road and we set up camp in some trees which we were sure would give some protection from the freezing temperatures that we were expecting overnight. This is Lord of the Rings territory (well one of the many film locations that are scattered over the South Island) and walking further up the valley that afternoon we were surrounded by the scenery that provided the real life locations of Caradhras, Isengard, Lothlorien and Amon Hen.

Indeed it was a rather cold night, but we were OK all the same and far happier knowing that we weren’t paying $32 for the privilege. On the way back to Queenstown, we headed over towards Kinloch on the other side of the Dart Valley and to where the Routeburn walking track starts. No walking for us this time, just a few hours relaxing by the crystal clear blue water of the river.

Back in town we set ourselves up at to our favourite, 5* campsite and headed into town to enjoy the somewhat random parade and OK fireworks. The evening improved when we bumped into Kellie and Ross, two of the Ezycrew we had met previously in Wanaka and the four of us enjoyed a few more beers together washed down with a couple more mulled wines….

I’ve tried to upload a video for the first time on this blog, so if you’re feeling brave see if you can download it.

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