Easter Weekend Trip to Queenstown, Wanaka and Arrowtown

posted 14th April, 2010 category New Zealand

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world and one of the premier tourist destinations in New Zealand. Over the Easter Weekend we, together with a school friend of Bhav’s, drove from Dunedin and had a great time there.

The drive in itself was fun. We took the scenic route that locals apparently take stopping off to visit a cheese factory, drive through vineyards (and stop off for a free wine tasting) before watching people jump off an old bridge at the site where the “sport” of bungy jumping was invented.

We spent a day and a night in Queenstown, enjoying the spectacular scenery. Easter Weekend as might be expected is a busy time and the streets were packed with people. The queue at the cable car up one of the hills seemed long but moved quickly and we were soon at the top enjoying the views. We could have been up and down in the time it would have taken Bhav to climb up if she had stuck to her plan.

On the drive back towards Dunedin we took a detour to Arrowtown, a historic ex-gold mining town and then to another beautiful setting in Wanaka (which just so happened to be hosting the 4th largest Air Show in the world). After enjoying the view, which was occasionally punctuated with low flying aircraft, we set off on the long ride home.