Queenstown - The Southlands

March 25, 2010


Today was a day for driving as we headed south to Queenstown but what a stunning drive it was! This really is Lord of the Rings country. Majestic mountains many of them snow-capped, wide expanses of flat semi-arid plain, rolling foothills cut with turquoise blue braided glacial streams with gnarly old willows growing along the banks. Some of the flats and foothills are farmed mostly with cattle, sheep and alpaca or lama. These ‘stations’ are huge, some of them hundreds or thousands of hectares. The roads are single lane with pull offs and the locals drive 120 kph+ however you can go many kilometers without having any one in sight. We travelled through the McKenzies, along the foot of the Southern Alps to Lake Pukaki. This is another long turquoise glacier fed lake that drains the melt-water from the Tasman glacier, the longest glacier in New Zealand. At the head of the lake you see Mount Cook, covered in snow and capped in cloud. On a still day (which today definitely wasn’t) you can see the mountain reflected in the waters. If at all possible it was even more spectacular than Lake Tekapo.

Heading south we passed through places with names like Twizel, Ohau and Omerama and entered the Southlands. We passed through Landis pass, a windy road following the steep sides of a gorge – simply ‘gorgeous’ but a bit of white knuckle driving. This ends in Tarras where we stopped for lunch. Tarras’s claim to fame besides being beautiful is the site where Arwen calls down the flood to drive off the black riders in the Lord of the Rings. Our route led us through Bendinga and Wanaka which is wine country in the South Island. As we head south through Arrowtown and on to Queenstown we passed through former gold mining country which is now used for commercial skiing and passed over the ‘Roaring Meg’ in Kawaru gorge. This is now part of a Hydroelectric complex (New Zealand has many small private operators on the grid) and supposedly the site where Bungy Jumping originated. You can leap off a platform over the gorge and they measure the cord so you are dipped into the raging waters below.

We made it into Queenstown midafternoon, this will be our base as we explore Fiord land on the Tasman Sea and some of the sites where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. Queenstown is a sprawling village/city along the NE shore of Lake Wakatipu crawling up to sides of the very steep Remarkables range of mountains. It has the look Whistler B.C. and supposedly represents the most expensive real estate in New Zealand with homes with a good view fetching into the millions. It claims to be the world leading centre for adventure sports and I believe the ads. You can ski, jet boat, bungy, helicopter, parachute, hang glide, luge and even golf! This town is tourism based, part hippy, part money and very funky. It was established in the 1860’s during the gold rush however it is a very modern looking city. The Maori believe that Lake Wakapitu (which of course is stunning beautiful) is the imprint of a sleeping demon burnt to death by the lover of a beautiful Maori girl captured by the demon. Because his heart did not perish and still beats, the level of the lake rises and falls as much as 3 inches every 5 minutes. We are camped right downtown with a small creek that has trout spawning in it right behind our trailer. We look up to the Remarkables behind us yet are five minutes from some of the trendiest shops and restaurants. We are all a bit weary from travel and poor Connor has picked up a doozy of a cold which has knocked him out for the last two days, he’s also passed it on to me. Tomorrow we are up early to catch our flight into Milford sound by single engine aircraft (weather permitting).