Arrowtown Adventures, Landslides & Naps

Today we slept in slightly, our legs feeling not too bad from the previous days snow adventures. James and I set out down he street on a coffee run. Some delicious coffee can be found across the road from Queenstown's Lakeview Holiday Park at a cosy little cafe called Bespoke Kitchen.

On return it was a quick pack up and we were on the beautiful road to the historical town of Arrowtown, about 30 minutes out of Queenstown. Arrowtown is a historic gold mining town situated on the banks of the Arrow River, surrounded by steep, rocky mountains. Gold was first discovered in the Arrow river back in 1862 and soon a large population of 7,000 miners moved to the area. There are many well preserved buildings built by European and Chinese Immigrants when the Arrowtown gold mining was at it's peak. There was something very 'English' about the town with its stone walls, green grass, and old stone cottages everywhere. We browsed the many different antique and collectable stores before settling in for coffee and scones at a nice cafe.
Jo and I paid a little visit to the tiny local library, Jo reminiscing to the days when her Mum would take her and her siblings to the local library back home when they were young kids and they'd borrow books and DVDs til their hearts content. Such amazing memories! ☺️

After much wandering of this amazing little town, we decided to head back toward Queenstown, this time continuing through the town and heading toward a place called Glenorchy. The 50 minute drive to Glenorchy is very renowned for its stunning road alongside Lake Wakatipu (the main Queenstown lake). We were blown away by a constant view of the water, surrounded by green forests. We stopped briefly at the pristine Wilson bay and continued on our way. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before we were greeted with orange flashing lights and signs telling us to turn around. Due to persistent rain these last few days the road to Glenorchy had been damaged in a landslide and was closed. Sadly our little adventure out of town had come to an end.

So we headed back to our delightful holiday park and settled in for the afternoon. Jo took full advantage of the extra time in the afternoon to catch up on some sleep (still trying to shake this flu) while James, Jess and Hudson set out for the Queenstown Gondola to the top of the Ben Lomond mountain, and I sort out a good coffee and an almond croissant.

The Gondola riders returned, Jo woke up from her sleep and I dragged her into town for dinner. After much wandering of the streets we found a cosy place and tucked in to some delicious food. The food culture here is really great, you don't have to go far to find good food. We're pretty sure we've put on even more weight, it's just too good!

We settled in for the night, ready for what ever tomorrow brings.

Asher ☺️Read more