Leaving Queenstown, we drove up to Arrowtown for a few hours on the way to the next stop, which is Wanaka. Its a pretty little town, built on the goldrush and golden now for the colours of the trees, as we approach autumn. They have restored some of the old miners cottages and also rebuilt some shacks that the Chinese gold diggers lived in - rather smaler than the Europeans homes! It was a bit busy being bank holiday, so we walked out along the river before we had our picnic. After that, on a whim, I decided to take the mountain road over the Crown Range to Wanaka. Well...... a dozen nailbiting hairpins later, involving absolute sheer precipices and no crash barries whatsoever, we reached the top of the pass, which only turns out to
... read more