Joining the Tourist Trail to Queenstown

Friday 21 March

A chill morning at Lowburn as we packed up slowly and swapped Snowy River stories & health tips with Jenny & Warren - including a guided tour of each others caravans - they have the SRC19 and we have the SRC21 so both have different layouts. Jenny was also an absolute star as she shared a bunch of dressings with me for my knee where the graze from the cycle fall about 10 days ago was refusing to heal.

Then we hitched up and headed for Queenstown along one of the most scenic routes yet - through the Kawarau Gorge as the trees begin to show their autumn colours. The poplars were glowing a brilliant fluorescent golden green along the way.

We paused at the gold panning attraction, Roaring Meg falls and Lake Hayes where we had lunch in Banjo & I had a wander round the lakefront.

The turquoise aquamarine colour of the river against the grey stone cliffs & boulders of the Kawarau Gorge was incredibly beautiful, and the gurgling, rushing white waters of the Roaring Meg gave the scenery even more power and texture. Driving along the winding road carved into the hillside above the gorge you had to marvel at the Māori & the pioneers who crossed this landscape on foot & on horseback. Some of the road was literally carved into the rock - in one place the road sign warned "no stopping, danger of rockfall" so we scuttled through that section as quickly as we could. I was fascinated as much of the way through the Gorge I could see trucks and diggers clearing a matching path on the opposite river bank - up high, down low, across inlets and skirting round the bigger boulders. I presume it is a new cycle track under construction - that'd be an amazing ride!

We detoured through Arrowtown which was adorable, but failed to find a decent park for Pajero+Banjo so dropped down instead to Lake Hayes which was a very popular spot for the geese, ducks and swans. After lunch in Banjo I took a wee stroll along the waterfront and was intrigued to stumble upon an open air kindi all set up in amongst the willows - a rug covered in nature books, a picnic table set up with goblets & bowls, hanging hoops, theatre curtains between two trees, a hammock and a bunch of lunch boxes & school bags - I reckon the kids and teachers were all out on a nature walk. What a great way to learn!

Pitched up at the very lovely Driftaway Holiday Park almost on the dot of 2pm to make the most of our expensive booking. Our general finding has been that the more we pay, the more underwhelming the campsite has been… this place is the exception to the rule. Opened in 2022, everything is still shiny and new and the facilities are fantastic… but nothing beats the view over the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu.

You can always judge a campsite by the facilities block - the bathrooms here had about 10 modern toilets, nice shiny showers with adjustable height heads, elegant drain away basin setting and two sets of decent Remington hairdryers and ceramic straighteners! Up in the kitchen there were dispenser units of washing up liquid by the big sinks, new kettles and toasters, recipe books, polite notices, silicon heat mats, and a selection of cutlery, crockery & cookware - brilliant! Not to mention the BBQ terrace, plus the games room downstairs with air hockey, ping pong, Fußball and even a small climbing wall, as well as a TV room and outdoor play area and jumping pillow - WOW!

Did a bit of shopping in Frankton (yay - 40% off everything at Mountain Warehouse so I finally got new walking poles) and then registered Louis for the swim on Saturday before joining the traffic jam into Queenstown central to grab a takeaway to eat at the beach… except that Saigon Kingdom didn’t do takeaway and it looked so good that we ate in instead! Oops! Could have gone to Ferg Burger as is tradition in Queenstown, but the queues of tourist outside were immense as ever...

Left Queenstown just as the sun was setting which was so beautiful. Back at Driftaway the view from the BBQ deck and our pitch was stunning as we looked up the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu. What a great location!