Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown & Haast

Corrugated metal goats at Kelvin Heights Point in Queenstown

Leaving behind the mountains and rainforest of Milford Sound, we quickly found ourselves back in rolling farmland on our way to Queenstown.  The greens and golds and hills of the landscape are really mesmerizing.  The sheep, cows and goats don't seem to mind that their pasture land is quite hilly and they leave funny little patterns on the hillsides as they roam up and down.

Driving east inland from the west coast - I like how the
sun caught the overhead wires in this picture.  

We stopped in Kingston at the beginning (end?) of Lake Wakatipu, the third largest lake in New Zealand, and the longest at 50 miles long.  The water is fairly cold as the lake is very deep - almost 1250 feet in places.  Typical of New Zealand though - it's crystal clear and the beaches are clean and beautiful.  There's a cute little train station here for the Kingston Flyer train, but we didn't see the train.  The beach was scent-heaven - there are several beautiful big eucalyptus trees on the shore.  Sheer bliss!

The Kingston train station

The beach at Kingston.  Quite stony.

Big beautiful eucalyptus tree.  I just stood
there breathing it in.  Gorgeous

We carried on along the shoreline of the lake towards Queenstown - about 50 kilometres of beautiful driving.  When we arrived in town, we were a bit early to check in to our AirBnB, so we parked in town and walked around a bit.  It's kind of like going to Whistler.  Tourists everywhere, lots of coffee shops and tourist activity kiosks.  There is a gondola that takes hang-gliders up the mountain so we sat in a schoolyard, had a picnic lunch and watched the colourful kites circling above us.  Most of the action is down on the waterfront where you can buy tours on dinner cruises, rides on jet boats, or parasailing adventures among many other things.  I think it's safe to say that you could spend a lot of money here!

Driving alongside Lake Wakatipu north to Queenstown

Eventually, we made our way across the harbour via a one-lane bridge to the suburb of Kelvin Heights and our next AirBnB.  We have the run of the lower level of the house - a beautiful room with ensuite, a nice living area with fridge, and a big deck to sit and watch the sun set over the lake.  Our hosts, Anne and Gary, set out a beautiful wine and cheese snack and we all settled in upstairs getting to know each other.  Eventually, after discovering we hadn't yet experienced the New Zealand delicacy known as Whitebait, they invited us to share a dinner of this treat with them.  Quite tasty!  The next night, we cooked for them and we had a scrumptious lamb dinner.  Yum!

Yup.  A one-lane bridge that goes over to a
major suburb of Queenstown.  I don't quite get the
fascination with single-lane bridges in this country.

Sunset over the lake from our deck

Whitebait.  Odd looking, but very tasty!

Our fabulous hosts in Queenstown - Anne and Gary.

Our time here is fairly limited as Anne and Gary, along with every other place in town, are almost fully booked over the next couple of weeks.  We spent the next morning doing a hike on the Kelvin Heights peninsula - about 3 hours round trip.  It's a beautiful walk along the shoreline, past the 'yacht club' and out to the point where you can look across the harbour to the main part of Queenstown.

Heading out on our walk - the view from our street across the
water to the main core of Queenstown

This is a very wealthy suburb.  Some of the houses have
interesting sculptures in their front yards.

More 'yard art' in Kelvin Heights

My fave NZ tree - the Fierce Lancewood

New Zealand Flax - it's everywhere!

Looking across to Queenstown

Interesting metal sculpture in the trees
along the path.  It was super hard to get a
photo of this.  I looked it up and it's called
'Presence' and is supposed to represent 'a tree spirit
and a water spirit'   

Waterfront along the pathway - you can see how clear
the water is here.  It's shallow for about 10 feet,
then drops off quickly.  The water is a beautiful colour

The Yacht Club

There were several docks along the pathway.  Residents don't
seem to have foreshore rights, as the pathway cuts
across all properties.  Most of the homes are up on a
cliff.

At the tip of the peninsula are three corrugated metal goat
sculptures.  I can't find any info on them, but they
are a wonderful addition to the spot.  What I did find out is
some anonymous donor is commissioning sculptures
for this trail.  Very cool.

Can't go any further.

I liked the rock formation the goats were standing on.

In the afternoon, we took a drive out a bit south of town to visit an old childhood friend of mine from Winnipeg.  He's been living here for nearly 30 years and has built a beautiful home here with his partner, almost exclusively from reclaimed and recycled building materials.  The place is a work of art.  They are now raising three children on this stunning property.  Wish we'd had more time to visit, but he's busy with a business venture and we arrived in town just as a big deal was about to close.  It was wonderful to see him again, and we're so glad we had at least a bit of time to get caught up.  The conversation was fast and furious!

Mathurin with his wife Jessie, their son Moby and us.  

The house Mathurin built.  All from recycled and repurposed
materials.  Those doors are from an old church.  Panels
were removed and glass inserted.  Lovely!

One of the family sheep - Lucy!

The business they are embarking on is a social enterprise called Wilding & Co.  Interestingly, the Douglas fir that is so much a part of British Columbia, somehow made its way to New Zealand and is a bit of a vicious weed here, growing twenty times faster than it does in Canada.  The solution thus far has been to spray large swaths of it with poison. Mathurin and his business partner have come up with a win-win of taking the trees down and extracting high-value essential oils from them.  This reduces the poison injected into the environment by eliminating the spraying, gets rid of the tree problem, and gives them an income.  Brilliant.  I wish them well.

We took a drive out to the north end of the lake to a little town called Glenorchy to finish off the day.  It's mostly a stepping-off point for hikers - not a lot to see in town, but a gorgeous drive along the lake.

The drive out to Glenorchy.  Beautiful piece of highway.

On our way out of Queenstown the next day, we stopped to visit the very sweet little Arrowtown - an historic gold mining town - before carrying on through Mount Aspiring National Park to the tiny town of Haast on the west coast.   Haast is a one-night stop on our way up the coast to Greymouth.

Arrowtown main street.

Arrowtown.  Lots of touristy shops on the well-preserved main street.

Heading out of Queenstown and Arrowtown - beautiful scenery

Several miles of this - winding highway through
beautiful dry hill country.

River / waterfall stop in Mount Aspiring National Park.  Lots
of little stone sculptures all along the riverbank.  

Lots of flat stones here.  Still, these things take time.
And the bugs here were atrocious.  Maybe the
people who stop to do this are bug-resistant types?

We arrived at our second motel stay of our time here, and were met by the most unusual person we've met to date on this trip.  Honestly, it felt like we had landed in an episode of Fawlty Towers.  A little old lady slowly made her way to the desk when we arrived, placed her glasses on her face, and wanted to know our name.  Which we told her.  And which she said she couldn't hear . . . about 6 times.  Then she wanted our booking number, which I showed her on my phone.  Well, she doesn't like these phones.  Everyone keeps showing her the phone, when she just wants the booking number.  And where is the piece of paper with our name beside the booking number?  We explained we don't travel with a printer.  She went wandering off and came back with a piece of paper she had printed from booking.com and asked if this was us.  We assured her it was.  She then said we talk funny and had we ever seen the movie where some movie star told an English person they needed to speak "American".  She was quite offended by this.  Who ever heard of a language called American?  Did we know that her sister used to live in Canada - somewhere near Detroit?  Her sister had her hand strapped by a teacher who told her to say Can't, not cawnt.  It kind of went on from there.  I think the whole check-in process was a good half-hour.  We were cracking up as we left the office.  Good thing we weren't in a hurry.

Looking towards our motel from the beach path in Haast

Big stony beach at Haast.  The bugs are tiny, so you
can't see them.  :-)

Super colourful beach stones.  We spent a long time looking
for pretty stones.  I have no idea why.  It's just what we do!

Haast is not a tourist town.  There's a big rocky, windy beach that is chock-full of sandflies, and not much else.  Not fun. I think it's a stopping-off point for hunters, fishers and hikers.  We went back to our little room, had dinner and an early night.  No wifi here!

Glen on the great 'stone quest'