Louise Down Under: On to the Town Of Queens. . .

Queenstown from above

From Tekapo, we wound our way south south-west through Twizel, Omarana, Cromwell and at last to Queenstown. I'm pretty sure that this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong. . . it is definitely a tourist town, but well done, and with a setting that is both celebrated and respected. We had originally planned to spend only 2 nights here, and splurged on a nice Airbnb that was an easy walk to the center of town. Almost immediately, we decided to stay another night in the Queen, taking the time from Wanaka (another mountain resort town), which turned out to be a good decision.

View from the Kitchen window

Even the views from our flat were spectacular. I sort of stood with jaw agape at our kitchen window to gaze to the town, hillside, and mountains, and then from our driveway to just look and wonder. One of the things we all wondered was what it would be like to live in this beautiful place, that has such a preponderance of accommodation for visitors. Though people say there's no off-season in Queenstown, winter (when we were there) is definitely less populated than summer. The town parks are lush and well maintained, and there are walks around lakes. Walks everywhere, really.

Lakeside: part of a coastal walk

Queenstown from the top at night

There is a gondola that you can take to the top of the closest mountain. The view all the way up is amazing, but they also had a Haka show combined with a buffet dinner. The Haka is a Maori dance, and while my understanding is that the Haka is actually a warrior dance, they also performed other dances, including a welcoming dance that would make a new guy hesitant to mess with this group. Think Hawaiian with a lot of edge and attitude. Wide eyes. Tongue stuck out. Whirling weapons. Tattoos. Lots of tattoos. So in spite of my knowing that this was a totally tourista thing to do, we did it. Another good decision. The ride up was great fun (4 to a car, so we all rode together), the view magnificent, the dance quite theatrical and instructive, and the buffet dinner astonishing good.

View from the gondola platform

The next day, S and A hit the town, while John and I decided to take the Tiki trail hike up the mountain. It was really a challenging climb, but once again, we were rewarded with some soul-filling vistas. As an aside, it seems like we had two kinds of hikes on the South Island. . .really easy ones, or really hard ones, with nothing in between. We spaced out the hard hikes so they weren't too onerous, but Man! This one tested my aging vessel!

I'll close this post with a few more images from Queenstown.