On the road to Queenstown

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Our next venue is only 2 ½ hours drive from Te Anau; so we decided to take an easy morning without rushing. Finally, after a superb egg, bacon and cheese pie at the local breakfast place (plus a “long black” coffee for me) we got on the road and headed toward Queenstown.

We backtracked for about a half-hour to Mossburn; then headed north to Queenstown. The fog
gradually lifted and gave us another perfectly beautiful day to view all the sights. Queenstown is north on a parallel track with Milford Sound but the two are not connected by road. Again, we found ourselves in the grips of two mountain ranges—on the east and west. This situation was reminiscent of the road to Milford, but we knew now what to expect.

Few towns appeared on the road to Queenstown, at least until we arrived at Kingston. A large billboard notified us about an historic coal locomotive, the Kingston Flyer, on an exist to the left. We turned in, but soon discovered that we already “missed the train,” but it was available just 5 Km or so down the road at the other local station. While we were there I took the opportunity to
tell the young woman in charge of the station about the Kingston Trio at the University of Rhode Island. Their most famous song was about “Charlie on the MTA; the “man who never returned.” She seemed to appreciate the story (or was extraordinarily polite); so we said goodbye and got back on the road.

Just as she predicted, we found the Kingston Flyer just a, few miles down the road. It was a
beautiful, black, coal-fired locomotive just backing up to a row of five or six equally-antique passenger cars to make the run back to the other station.

Soon we got back on the road and finished our travel to Queenstown. The motel appeared just at
our entrance into the town; so we decided to check in and unpack a bit.

After a short break, we decide to walk down the hill into town (about 10 minutes) and find out what’s happening. It was clear from the traffic that this was not sleepy little alpine town. People and cars filled the streets and created a kind of “activity” that we last sensed in Dunedin and Melbourne. We found a local pub housed in an old courthouse for a quick snack then continued to explore the town.

Almost immediately we decided to take advantage of the gondola ride to “Bob’s Peak”—how could I resist a name like that? The peak rises a couple thousand feet above the town and offers a fine restaurant, bungee jumping, multiple hiking trails, the “luge” (small low- slung carts traveling on a cement track down the mountain side), various kinds of hiking, helicopter rides and not to be forgotten, tamden paragliding rides (instructor and rider who jump off the cliff into the wind on an overhead “chute” and glide back and forth downward to the landing base in the town below. It was amazing how the chutes moved in the sky over the town and lake (Lake
Wakatipu) below. We spent the remainder of the afternoon observing activities on the peak; the made the return trip to the bottom and short walk (except uphill this time!) to our hotel.

More about Queenstown tomorrow!