Jan 8 and 9

Day 37 – Jan. 8 – Wanaka to Arrowtown

Usually I read the guidebook the night before, or at least by the next morning, so that we know what we’re going to be doing each day. But I hadn’t done my homework for today, and we were just going to head for Queenstown, even though we haven’t really done much here in Wanaka. I was just enjoying the feel of this town, its energy, the beauty of the surrounding hills, and didn’t want to stick my nose in a book. But after breakfast, as we prepared to hit the road, something made me hesitate. I simply wanted to spend more time here. So I reached for my Bible, the "Rough Guide", and read about the area surrounding Wanaka. Turns out there’s a long valley called the Matukituki Valley that people use to get right up to the base of the huge mountains we can see from town. There’s a ski area up there, and a lot of hikes begin up at the end of the road.

That’s all I needed to suggest we take a drive up it. So off we went, and soon we were in one of the most spectacular valleys I’ve ever seen in my life, in any country I’ve ever been in. I was whipping my head right and left as the views out both sides of the car tried to outdo each other. Every mile or so I was jumping out of the car snapping pictures. There were about 3 houses in the 20 or so miles we traveled. Turns out some guy named John Roy bought up the entire valley about 1850 (I have to wonder if that means he stole it from the Maoris, since who’d owned any land in NZ before 1850?), and his family has been raising cattle and sheep in the valley ever since. One of the 2 houses looked like a shepherd might live there (with his favorite sheep?). Another was a simple ranch-style house on a bluff overlooking the river, surrounded by trees, nothing fancy. Maybe the foreman’s house?

The third obviously belonged to the guy raking in the bucks from the sale of all those cows and lambie-pies. It was a Victorian-looking 2-story gray and white farmhouse, but it looked like it belonged in one of London’s poshest neighborhoods. And the grounds were planted in every known variety of beautiful flower and tree in NZ. I’m sure it required 2 full-time gardeners to keep it looking so lovely. Parked alongside the immaculate barns and outbuildings were rows of tractors and other farm equipment. And in 2 hangars were 2 helicopters – his and hers, we expect. After all, when you need a cup of milk for your pancakes in the morning, you need it right now, and it takes an hour to get to town in a car. Works for me!

We drove up the valley until we came to a place where the creek ran over the road. A car ahead of us went through the water and it came up high enough to go over his back bumper. I thought he was going to stall out in the middle of it but he kept going. Because we’re in a rental car, we decided not to chance it and turned around. On the way back to town, we saw a sign for a hike of about an hour and a half, so we put on our packs and off we went. Climbed up and up and up until we were on the top of a bluff and could see most of Lake Wanaka and the town. That was our only exercise for the day.

I’ve decided that of all the places we’ve seen on both the islands, Wanaka gets my nod for the place I could live, or at least spend an entire Seattle winter/NZ summer. It has fine weather, warm days, cool nights. It has enough restaurants that you wouldn’t have to eat Thai food every night when you went out for dinner. The golf course is good enough to play often without tiring of it. There are lots of people coming in to keep it interesting, rather than stagnant. It’s touisty, but not so much so that it would drive us crazy. It’s localized to right in the center of town, so you can easily get away from the hordes.

After our hike, we drove back into Wanaka for one last lunch, then headed out over Cardrona Pass road, an alternate way to get to Queenstown, which turned out to be yet another spectacularly beautiful stretch of country.

We’ve heard so much about Queenstown from everybody who’s ever been there that we know we HAVE to go there, but we’re also unsure we want to actually stay in the town. From all I’ve read about it, it’s the center of the universe for adrenaline junkies. I have no beef with that. After all, I’ve been one of the hard-core adrenaline junkies for most of my life. But I’m getting more sedate in my second wind and bungy jumping, jetboating, canyon swinging, river surfing, whitewater sledging, canyoning, mountain climbing, mountain biking, and four-wheeling don’t appeal to me much any more. And I like to keep my feet firmly on terra firma to keep the contents of my stomach where they belong, so I pass on sky diving, paragliding, hanggliding, scenic flights and ballooning. I’ve had enough whitewater raft trips to last me a lifetime, so that pretty much leaves only one Queenstown activity that we’re both interested in: riding up to a mountain perch in a gondola. Whooppee!

We came to signs for Arrowtown before Queenstown and just for fun detoured off the main road and went into the town. We’d read that it was expensive and getting to be upscale and haute couture and there probably wouldn’t be any rooms. But there were plenty of rooms, just as everywhere we’ve been so far, and we found a lovely ‘old world charm’ motel for $120NZ/$70US. It has a bedroom, bathroom, and huge living room/kitchen. It’s like a separate cottage, and has beautiful grounds with a huge patch of lavender that is full of happy bees right outside the front window. The door key is one of those old-fashioned things like they used in hotels in the 19th century. There were about 4 different shapes ever made, and they’re the easiest locks in the world to pick, so we hope our stuff is still in our room when we get back.

Since we’re just a block from the town center, which is only one block long, we walked down there and had dinner at a French restaurant. Sat outside and watched everybody walking by, spoke to most of them, and spoke German with our waitress and French with the owner. A sparrow kept hounding us for crumbs, so we obliged him by tossing him some crust from the French bread. He obliged us by perching in a tree branch right over Joe’s head and dropping a bomb that missed his plate by an inch, but spattered his arm.

Across the street from us is a local park where we stopped and watched the local teenagers show off their skateboarding tricks for us. We commented that in the US they’d probably be decked out in helmets, knee, elbow and hand pads, but not here.

In another park a crowd had gathered. A bunch of Indians were filming a Bollywood production, and guys were shouldering big cameras, others were yelling instructions to a guy who was standing up on a knoll about 40 yards away. When a woman, probably the director, finally yelled something to him, his face transformed from a scowl into a huge smile, he launched himself off the knoll, ran with arms pinwheeling down to a picnic table, jumped onto the seat, then onto the top of it, then down onto the ground, then came to a stop (by now the cameras had stopped), and his smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come and he went off to the side and stood scowling again. In 10 minutes they did it all over again, then again. That’s one movie I never want to see.
It stays light until nearly 10 pm so by the time it was dark, it was time for bed.

Day 38 – Jan. 9 –Arrowtown

We woke up to rain pattering on the metal roof, so Joe went back to sleep while I asked if we could stay another night here. Sure. When the rain finally cleared up, we headed for Queenstown to just see what all the hoopla is about, this town that is the favorite of so many visitors to NZ. It is in a stupendously beautiful setting, nestled along the edge of a lake that is bluer than the sky and as clear as Florida’s springs. High mountains spring fully grown right from the lake’s edge and reach to the heavens. You couldn’t pick a lovelier place to plunk down a town.

Apparently many other people think so, as there are lots of homes marching up the hillsides. On the streets are motels, hotels, B & B’s, backpacker lodges, stretching for many blocks. In the town center, about 3 blocks long, are row upon row of booking offices for all the thrill sports, plus all the attendant stores in which you can buy all the gear you’ll need to do them properly and look good while doing it. Buses with the names of the adrenaline choices were picking up people headed for the ‘adventures of a lifetime’and disgorging them back at their cars.

We headed to the Queenstown golf course for lunch. Turns out they close the café when it looks like the rain is going to keep people home, so no lunch there. We hung around for a bit to see what the weather was going to do. A couple from Aberdeen, Scotland, were also just hanging out, so we talked for a while, and we ended up inviting them to stay with us if they’re ever in Seattle, which they indicated they planned to visit someday.

After lunch in town, we wanted to get a bird’s-eye view of Queenstown from on high, so we queued up with about a thousand other people and bought a ride on the gondola. While we were up there, we indulged in a token ‘adventure activity’ and hopped on one of those luge thingies and went careening wildly down the run with all the teeny-boppers.

That wore us out so we headed out to the Arrowtown golf course to check it out, and found out they’re having a tournament tomorrow in which we can play. Then we headed back to Arrowtown, and watched old people lawn bowling, kids tossing balls to one another in the park, couples strolling hand-in-hand along the creek, and kids catching crayfish in the creek. The stores, except for the restaurants, all close by 6 pm.