Beautiful Queenstown

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February 17th 2006

Published: March 21st 2006

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Martin Laura

Self photo at Lake Tekapo...

.. resting camera on a rock

Our friend Harry arrived in Christchurch in the morning from Nelson and gave Martin a lift out to get the hire car then we got on our way early afternoon to make our way to Queenstown. It’s a 7 hour drive south west from Christchurch and we saw some amazing scenery along the way.

We stopped at Lake Tekapo which is a huge lake with striking blue water and a small church at the bottom, postcard perfect place with a snow capped Mount Cook overlooking it. A little further on we came across another beautiful lake called Lake Pukaki and there was absolutely noone around so we had a peaceful wander around. We couldn’t get over how clear the water was and such a vibrant shade of blue. We passed through the Kawarau Gorge and stopped at a place called Roaring Meg which is part of the Kawarau River. The mountains that overlooked the entire road to Queenstown were spectacular and what was a 7 hour journey seemed like just a few. Upon arrival in Queenstown we found that all the hostels and hotels had no vacancies so we had a bit of a mission to find somewhere, but we

Lake Tekapo.

did eventually at 10pm, it was a little out of town but made no difference to us as we had the car.

First thing the next morning we headed into town to find out a little more about the area from the tourist information centre, they were useless, the girl who was dealing with us didn’t seem too bothered with helping, so we grabbed a few leaflets and made our own plans. Our fist stop was Deer Heights Park which is a hilly parkland overlooking the town, Lake Wakatipu and is overlooked itself by ‘The Remarkables’ mountain range. A lot of scenes for the Lord of the Rings films were shot in this park and it was clear to see why. We did a self drive as the park was so big and got to feed lots of animals such as Fallow Deer, Miniature Horses, Donkeys, Goats, Bison, Cattle and Yaks which were roaming the park freely. The Donkeys were particularly amusing as they kept trying to get into the car in search of food.

At lunchtime we headed for Arrowtown for food, this is a quaint old village a few km’s out of Queenstown with some lovely

Chapel at Lake Tekapo

beer gardens and pretty buildings.

Queenstown is famous for having the world’s first official Bungy Jump from the Kawarau Bridge so we drove there to check it out. After watching people throwing themselves off the 142 ft high bridge for about 45 mins I (Martin) decided that I wanted to give it a go for real seeing as the virtual reality one in Wellington didnt work out… When they were attaching me to the gear I was fine until I hopped to the edge of the jumping platform and looked down at the river below, suddenly it seemed a lot higher. I took a deep breath and went for it, I can’t explain the feeling I felt as I was hurtling towards the water but it was one I would have to seriously think about feeling again. I sprung back up from the water and bounced around a couple of times before the boat picked me up, phew !! Laura managed to catch it on video so if anyone fancies seeing it drop us a mail and I’ll email it to you.

Queenstown itself is a beautiful pocket of the South Island, also a very popular holiday destination

Lake Pukaki

You can see Laura at the bottom

for all nationalities and ages. We really liked the fact that you had a busy town to eat and party in, but once you left the main strip of town you were surrounded by wilderness and out of this world scenery.

The next day we were heading to the Fiordlands to a place called Milford Sound to check out some more of the South Islands destinations..

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