Town of gold - Arrowtown

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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 be the highest sealed road in NZ.Still, the views were excellent - along the back of the Remarkables - and I'd stopped shaking by the time we reached the quiet hostel in Wanaka.

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Photos

on a walk in Arrowtown.
its in a lovely situation.

trees
are just turning

friendly
neighbourhood gold digger

Chinese
gold diggers hut

a quiet read
after lunch. the picnic table was in the shade, so I sat on the grass.

view from the top.
look carefully and you can see lake Wakapitu and Queenstown in the background.

Comments

[wordy]

What a view!
That was worth the hair-raising drive wasn't it! It looks like you are on top of the world!