Cardrona Hotel

Today I joined a tour to Wanaka and Arrowtown. But first we made a stop to photograph the lupines, then the Windy Hill Overlook, Cardrona Hotel and Bradrona.

Our tour guide, Maury, is a native to New Zealand. His family were sheep farmers, but he decided he didn't like sheep that much and decided to herd tourists instead. Maury is semi-retired now and only works three days a week. Today I got to sit in the front seat, which may be my first time riding front passenger in a car that has the driver on the right.

Maury moved to Queenstown 41 years ago, and at that time the town had a population of only 5000 people. Today the population is 50,000, and there are probably that many tourists in the city at any given time, 12 months a year.

It's been a crappy-weather summer so far, with only a handful of nice days. The warmest the lake gets is 50 degrees in the summer, and even then the longest a person can stay alive in the lake is about 30 minutes. Maury once rescued a man who had been in the water for 20 minutes and was ready to let himself go when they found him. The lake does not freeze over in winter, however; it just ices around the edges.

Random facts.... The Remarkables are 7600 ft high. Kmart still going strong here.
Bill Hamilton, in 1955 invented the jet boat here in NZ. These boats can run in 4 in of water. Jet boat tours are popular here and I'm going on one on Wednesday.

111 is the emergency number in NZ, fyi.

The tree line here is at about 800 meters. Not much besides grass and brush grows above that.

Sheep are farmed for meat mostly. There is no money in wool. It costs more to hire someone to sheer the sheep than the wool is worth.

At the top of windy hill, we stepped over a fence with some stationary steps up, over and down the other side of the fence. Then went to the edge of the mountain for a view and photos.

Then we proceeded to the historic Cardrona Hotel. Cardrona is a small tourist ski town, and so very quaint. There is a restaurant and bar, a hotel, and a gift shop in the old schoolhouse. I heard that the hotel just sold for something crazy like 20 million dollars. Jimmy the owner lived to 91 years old and died in 1961. His ghost is rumored to reside in the hotel. Jimmy restricted how much alcohol people bought from him. First of all, women were not allowed any alcohol. If a man was going one way toward the mountains, he was allowed only one drink. If he was going the other way, he could have two drinks. Jimmy died in room 6.
It is said that if too many women come into the hotel, things start to move.

A little bit up the road toward Wanaka is "Bardrona". The story is on New Years' Eve 1999, four "ladies" left their bras on the fence, and well it started from there. Women have been leaving their bras ever since.Read more