Queenstown, Arrowtown, Wanaka and Dacre

After finishing our last walk we took a few days to explore the tourist towns in the area. Our first stop was Queenstown, a town of 11,000. We are not sure if any Kiwis actually live in the town because everyone we met was from a county other than New Zealand. The town is in an absolutely incredible location, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables (beautiful mountains) providing a picturesque backdrop. Queenstown has a lot to offer from its food (everything from huge hamburgers to bulgogi) and shopping to skydiving, bungee jumping or jet boating. For a large number of people who come to New Zealand Queenstown and the surrounding area is all they see. For us it was a good place to stop for a day, but there were too many tourists so we did not stay long.

In our attempt to escape the tourists we drove out to Arrowtown only to find the town populated by buses and their occupants. Arrowtown is an old mining town built in the 1860s. Over 60 of the original town buildings still stand which make it a beautiful, quaint town. We went for a walk along the river and then hid in a hostel until most of the buses had left. When we came out in the evening the streets were deserted and the town looked incredible. We enjoyed being only two having an evening drink at the local brewery.

We snuck out of Arrowtown in the morning before the busses arrived and drove to Wanaka. Wanaka seems to be a mini Queenstown. It is half the size, on a smaller lake with shorter mountains surrounding it and everything costs half as much as it does in Queenstown. Wanaka has an incredible lakefront beach and a cinema with couches for chairs and for us it was much more relaxing than Queenstown.

After exhausting ourselves in the tourist “must see’ towns we drove south to Dacre. We are pretty sure that Dacre does not have a population and the only way that we know it exists at all is the small building on the side of the road that had “Dacre Town Hall” printed on it. We went to Dacre to visit the farm that my dad worked for in the early 70s. One of the sons of the couple my dad worked on and his wife run the place as an organic sheep and beef farm. They have an almost 9 year old son and twin 7 year old girls. We spent 5 days with the family helping out around the house, in the garden and on the farm. In return they took us to the local sights. We got to see all the antique tractors at Crank Up Day in Edendale and we visited Monkey Island and Cosy Nook Just outside of Riverton. It was wonderful to be on a sheep farm and experience more of the local culture. Dacre might not have been in any tourist book, but it was our favorite place to stay over the last week.

Sorry about there not being any pictures. The wireless on our computer seems to be fading fast and the internet cafe is closed.