Queenstown

We left Te Anau early afternoon for the long drive to Queenstown and checked into our hotel at 6:30pm.

We were given the furthest room from the lifts (long way) despite request for a room close to amenities, after getting nowhere ourselves the rep. intervened and we got a room on the reception floor about 20yds away from there and with the bar / restaurant 20yds the other way.

Apparently the disabled rooms are 2 floors down (hotel on a hill) and even further from the lifts than our first room, this place must have been thrown together not designed.

Looking around our room backed this up, the toilet seat wouldn’t stand up because the flush button was positioned right at the top of the lid, the bath had such a high lip that lots of people wouldn’t be able to get over it and of course there were no grab rails. In the room none of the light switches could be reached from the bed, and the bed was about 6 inches away from the wall (plugs behind it) with the headboard fastened to the wall, so your pillow fell down the gap.

Hotel the third worst so far, even scores lower than Rotorua which was also a Copthorne Millenium.

Ate in the bar since the restaurant wasn’t open, there was a high school graduation for over 200 students and parents, grandparents, friends etc. upstairs and most of the staff were there. Food was actually good, very surprised.

Next morning we went on a trip to Skippers Canyon (see separate blog), then into town and MacDonalds to post some more of the blog, here the free Wi-Fi is rationed; you get 30 minutes for each purchase, works out more expensive than the hotels, this town is a backpackers centre, that might explain it.

Evening and off to a highlight dinner across Lake Wakatipu to the Walter Peak Station at the Colonel’s Homestead. We travelled on the TSS Earnslaw (Twin Screwed Steamship) and you could watch the engine room with the coal being shovelled.

Dinner was pretty good and we got two glasses of wine each to cheer us up after missing Milford. Another sheep shearing after dinner but the best was the sheepdog rounding up a small flock, reminded us of ‘One Man and his Dog’.

As we left Queenstown we visited Arrowtown which was the main town during the Gold Rush. It is still very Victorian in character, with a separate Chinese area some way away, the whites in the 1860’s needed them but wouldn’t let them live close by.

The town has a Roman Catholic Church with a very unusual feature, apparently they couldn’t wait long enough for the replacement.

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