SPLENDOUR
Arrowtown’s trees and cottages are central to the charms of the town. Aimie Cronin makes up for past neglect on her first trip to the southern lakes.
Thirty-one years, a heap of travel over New Zealand and the world, but nary a trip to Central Otago. Shame on me. I remember seeing a picture of Wanaka as a kid without knowing where it was and I thought it was the most beautiful place on Earth. Decades later I arrived and was just as sure.
You’re in the throes of landing and already thinking what a dumb-ass you’ve been for neglecting this view. It doesn’t take long to concur with whoever it was that named the mountains the Remarkables. It’s jawdropping all around.
I think I neglected this part of New Zealand for so long because I’m not the adventurous type. People who travel to Queenstown and Wanaka do stuff when they get there. They charge down mountains on their attachment of choice and jump out of planes and wear Icebreaker merino jumpers and their sunglasses are worn with a cord around the neck because they might fall off in the midst of all the adventurousness.
I know the types well and yet I am not one of them. I like to drink by a pool with a book in summer and drink by a fire with a book in winter. You would think that would make me relatively cheap to run. It doesn’t. But Queenstown, I always thought, had nothing to offer me and my type. How wrong I was.
The view is its best asset. And it’s not just one frame of remarkableness. Everywhere you drive, from Queenstown, to Arrowtown, to Wanaka, and I’m sure further afield, is thrilling to look at and so impressively cuddled by mountains.
Here is my list of things to do for people who like life irrespective of adventure, in and around Queenstown.