A Short Break

Today, Monday 1 February, is a provincial holiday for Auckland, our Anniversary Day. While many Aucklanders flee the city to popular beachside holiday centres on these long weekends we generally stay at home because the accommodation usually fills up too quickly, prices inflate and the traffic flows back to the city at the end of the weekend are abysmal. But this is no ordinary year and last Wednesday her indoors phoned me to say that the Sofitel in Queenstown - a luxury hotel that usually charges between $700-1000 per night - had a bed a two night bed and breakfast deal for just $500 and should we go? Since any airfares were already paid for, thanks to a significant airline credit resulting from last year’s cancelled Canadian trip, and considering that all we would need to worry about would be the cost of the hotel, a rental car and some food, the answer was yes. Next day we made our bookings and bright and early on Saturday we boarded our flight to Queenstown, in the deep south of New Zealand.

Arriving just before 10:00am we picked up the rental car and drove out to Arrowtown, a gold mining settlement in the 1860s. It is a charming place filled with old colonial buildings, eateries and trinket shops...and several very expensive wine shops too I might add. After a walk about and lunch we headed back to Queenstown and our beautiful hotel room with a view over the top of the town and down to the lake. After a brief freshen up we went into the town to scout out places for dinner. The usually bustling town is suffering badly from the loss of overseas tourism and was far quieter than we have known it on previous visits. We walked without the crowds around the lake front on a gloriously sunny and warm day.

Having decided on where we would dine we popped into the supermarket an bought a couple of bottles of Otago Pinot Noir (at a significantly lower price than the Arrowtown stores I hasten to add) and returned for an afternoon drink in our luxury room while we read our books (and I wrote up the blog post on the previous day’s wargame). After a pleasant Thai dinner we went down to the waterfront and sat on the wall in the hot evening sun to watch the SS Earnslaw steam back to the dock from her dinner cruise.

Then we watched the sun set behind Ben Lomond at 9:20 - I had forgotten that this far south sunset is much later than Auckland...a good hour later in fact.

Going..

...going...

...GONE!

Sunday brought forth a welcome lie in followed by a leisurely breakfast before we headed south on a day out, pausing first at the Shotover River Bridge. The bridge itself no longer carries the highway, having been replaced by a wider one decades ago, and is now only only used by mountain bikers and pedestrians.

Then we drove down through the Kawerau Gorge through which the azure water of river of the same name flows. Here it is rushing through the rapids known as Roaring Meg.

Still further south we stopped at the Alexandra Bridge (the supports of the old in front of the new) across the Clutha River, the Clutha Dam, and paused for a great view over the confluence of the Kawerau and Clutha Rivers in front of Cromwell town.

On the outskirts of Cromwell we stopped for an excellent lunch at a carvery called the Stoker House with very generous servings at very reasonable prices...ours was a middle sized plate so goodness know what a large plate would have been like!

Then on the way back to Queenstown we stopped at a spa in Arthur’s Point and sat in a hot tub for an hour soaking up the heat and the fabulous view over the Shotover River, where we watched the tourist jet boat shoot the rapids. It was a wonderfully relaxing thing to do with just the rustling of the trees and the songs of the birds to be heard.

After dinner in an Indian Restaurant we were ready to sit on the wall again and watch the sun dip below the edge of the mountains, but a sharp wind was blowing up the lake, making it a little less than pleasant. So we returned to the hotel for an nightcap...or two.

All too soon Monday morning came around and although we had a leisurely wakeup and breakfast, we were soon on our way to the airport for our flight home, with these superb views on the climb out.

The valley between Cecil and Bayonet Peaks on the southern arm of Lake Wakatipu

Cecil Peak

Bayonet and Cecil Peaks in the foreground and Queenstown in the distance, upper right.

By 3:30 we were home, the weekly food shop done, everything put away and sitting down for a coffee, acutely aware in these COVID times just how privileged we are in this country to be able to move around with such ease.