The Visitor Information Centre and other Queenstown, New Zealand General Tips

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The place where you can book everything in Queenstown is the Visitor Centre. There are even two offices at the intersection of Shotover Street and Camp Street, located diagonally opposite each other.

Most of the major tourism operators have offices in this area, especially in Shotover Street which is parallel to Beach Street.

i-site
Phone +64 (0)3 442 4100
Fax+64 (0)3 442 8907
Address: Clock Tower, Cnr Camp and Shotover Streets
Email: info@qvc.co.nz
Web: www.queenstown-vacation.com

Beside the i-site, in the first floor of an outdoor sportshop, is the office of the Department of Conservation (DoC) where you can get some free and purchase other maps. Although it is a bit of moneymaking to charge NZ$ 5 for a trail map of the walks around Queenstown, you get valuable - and free - info at the desk. It should be your first port of call if you plan day walks or multi-day hikes in the area.


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The Main Town Pier next to the small beach (Marine Parade) is the place to book your trips on the Kawarau Jet. The trips with this jetboat company also start here, as does the adventure activity of Paraflights. (BTW Kawarau Jet has got a competitor with jetboat rides on the Kawarau River, Thunderjets. They are just developing a website, contact details are already available on http://www.thunderjetqueenstown.co.nz/)

Just around the corner, towards the Boardwalk/Steamer Wharf, is another kiosk where you can book all kinds of activities, like Fishing Charters, Sightseeing Trips and Family Functions.
The place where you can book everything, however, is the Visitor Centre. There are even two offices at the intersection of Shotover Street and Camp Street, located diagonally opposite each other.

Most of the major tourism operators have offices in this area, especially in Shotover Street which is parallel to Beach Street.

Info & Track
Phone:+64 (0)3 442 9708
Fax:+64 (0)3 442 7038
Address:
37 Shotover Street
Queenstown
Email: adventure@infotrack.co.nz
Web: www.infotrack.co.nz

More info sites are listed on this website:

http://www.queenstown-nz.co.nz/information/searchresults/?category=queenstown-visitor-information-centres


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Favorite Thing: Queenstown has four distinct seasons, and all of them are beautiful in their own way.

Spring begins in September with trees blossoming. In November the lupins begin to bloom. This is especially nice along the road to Glenorchy. The weather is not settled, you always have to expect showers.

Summer is from December to February. This, of course, is the best time for the great outdoors, with hot and dry weather, and long days. Now Queenstown can be rather crowded, with the summer tourism in full swing. New Year’s Eve is wonderful here, with spectacular fireworks over Lake Wakatipu.

Autumn (March to May) are golden in the Queenstown region, with all the exotic trees, mostly poplars and willows, changing the colour of their foliage. The region does not have a lot of evergreen native flora, so this season is spectacular. After the summer heat this is a perfect season for hiking, the weather is rather settled now.

Winter days in the region are crisp and cold, with blue skies. It is the second big holiday season, with skiers hurrying to the big ski resorts at Coronet Peak and the Remarkables. A third fabulous ski region, the Cardrona Range, is not far away – but, at times, not easy to reach. Be prepared to difficult road conditions and the one or other heavy dump of snow which can make travelling on the roads impossible. The main event is the famous Winter Festival in late June/early July.

Although the mountains are not as high and the snow base not as thick as at Mt. Hutt (near Methven, Canterbury), Queenstown is, thanks to its plethora of tourist activities and exclusivity, Australasia’s winter sports capital.

Weather changes are possible without further notice, no responsibility is taken ;-)))

Weather links:

http://www.metservice.co.nz
http://www.weatherinfo.co.nz


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Favorite Thing: You cannot miss his statue at the lakeside. William Gilbert Rees, sculpted together with a sheep, was the first settler in Queenstown, so the founder and pioneer, and had a huge sheep run at the site where the township of Queenstown is now, and far beyond.

Rees was born in Wales in 1827 and came to New Zealand with his wife Frances in 1859. They arrived in Port Chalmers, the port of Dunedin. In early 1860 he set off with five other guys and explored the High Country. Four of them gave up. Only Rees and Nicholas von Tunzelmann carried on. From the Crown Range they discovered “The Promised Land of Rees”. They travelled by horse, on driftwood rafts and on foot. After six weeks they returned to Dunedin and lodged their claims to grazing rights.

Rees gained rights to graze more than 240,000 acres in the Wakatipu basin. To take 3000 merino sheep across the mountains and rivers proved to be an extreme challenge. But he succeeded, and settled near the point where you see his statue, and erected the first buildings. In 1863, William Gilbert Rees was operating no less than 14 businesses in the town – as a carrier, coach proprietor, lighterman, boat builder, hotel keeper, store keeper, contractor, sawyer, gold buyer, slaughterman, baker, land agent, runholder, and ferryman.

The goldrush that had already started in Otago became a big problem for Rees, as gold-diggers swarmed over his land. He provided food and transportation for them but his sheep farming became more and more difficult. At the end he was paid compensation of about 10,000 pounds for the affected part of his farm, and he moved to the Kawarau Falls.

He did not stay there for long. In 1869 he moved on to manage sheep stations at Benmore (no lake at the time…), Otekaieke, Tekapo (no lake there either…), and Galloway near Alexandra. Later he became Government Stock Inspector in Timaru, Greymouth, Ashburton and Wellington. He retired in 1897.

Rees died in Wairau on 31 October 1898, aged 71. His wife died 28 years later in Stoke near Nelson.

His monument in Queenstown was erected in 2001.

You will stumble over his name every now and then, for example Rees Dart Track, but also names like Cecil and Walter Peak which have been named after his son Cecil Walter.

You find quite good and detailed information about William Gilbert Rees on the homepage of the Rees Hotel
Click on Home, then on History.

Good info also on this website:
http://www.experiencequeenstown.co.nz/region/about-queenstown/william-gilbert-rees/

Photo 2 shows the plaque of Rees’ statue.


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Favorite Thing: Lake Wakatipu is the South Island’s second largest lake after Lake Te Anau. It is Z-shaped, has a total length of 77 kilometres, and covers 293 square kilometres.

It is surrounded by steeply rising mountains. Ice-age glaciers carved it out. The deepest point is 378 metres.

The lake has a natural rock dam, lying at Kingston at the southern end of the lake. The terminal moraine blocks the flow of water into the Mataura River valley.

You can observe an interesting phenonemon at Lake Wakatipu, called transverse seiche. Due to wind or atmospheric pressure variations the level of the lake alters by as much as 15 centimetres. You can observe this best at Bob’s Cove, a place on the way between Queenstown and Glenorchy.

However, I am not too much impressed by this. Everybody talks about it, but many guides who tell you have not really watched it. Given that the wind can be very strong and that two rivers feed the lake near Glenorchy, this observation does not take my breath away ;-))

The word Wakatipu means “Place where the Demon lies”. According to Maori legend a giant demon kidnapped a Maori chief’s daughter and took her to his home in the mountains. After walking against a strong nor’easter (wind) he lay down to sleep, with his head near Glenorchy, his knees at Queenstown, and his feet at Kingston. The girl’s lover who had followed their traces set the sleeping giant on fire, and the burning fat carved its way into the earth. That is why Lake Wakatipu has its Z-shape. The variation of the lake’s level were said to be the demon’s pulsating heart.

Although I am a lover of such legends I must really wonder about this one. If the giant was burnt why should his heart still be pulsating? And if he was 77 kilometres tall when lying down, it should not have taken him more than five steps to cross the South Island, wherever he kidnapped the girl… So why should he have been exhausted after those some steps against the strong wind and needed a rest?... Hubby says I am a spoilsport... ;-)

Anyway – this is the explanation where the name comes from.


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Favorite Thing: You might notice a meandering one-line plaque on the quay wall along the Queenstown lakeside, between the Kawarau Jet Wharf and the Boardwalk. It is called: “Waipounamu: The Lakes District”. It is a poem, written by David Eggleton, who is a NZ poet and reviewer. He has written for quite a number of different formats: for dance, landscape photography, for installations, walkways, and film.

This one on the shore of Lake Wakatipu is hommage to the beautiful landscapes of the Lakes District, and if you are patient enough to read from the meandering tiles and around people who cover some of the writing, you will read many places you have been or want to go to, about Wakatipu, Glendhu Bay, Glenorchy, even the Kingston Flyer.

Thanks to Naomi Castle from Destination Queenstown who provided me with the poem, so I did not have to invest an hour into copying it from the quay wall :-)

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WAIPOUNAMU
by David Eggleton

Hoisting history on his back like a sugar – sack,
The swagger strides along greenstone trails.
All night the crib creeks are humming home,
And drowned towns float in their canvas shrouds.
They are just the ghosts of their original selves,
An emotional investment looted by snow-melt for,
Schemes to answer the question of illumination.
To tap this yearning for a golden age,
Singing shepherds held wisps of tussock
Which curled like lighted Chinese joss-sticks
On the fan – tan tables of sly-grog dens,
Frozen in that glacier known as the past.
In the forgotten graveyards, hair grows into grass
While wind sifts the sweet vernal over ands over,
Like diggers letting gold dust pour through their fingers.
The Kingston flyer is chuffing
On the great Northern Railway to Wakatipu,
John Turnbull Thompson cut the run holders loose
With a panoramic survey and the confidence of a faith healer
In the middle of Queen Victorias royal century,
When the boom-time harvest of celtic place names
Seeded central like a nouveau-Hiberian dialect
From Balclutha to Glimmerburn to Glendhu bay.
Winter arrives on time in a glitz blitz of powdery snow.
The hoar frost in a Quartztpoils of ice crystals
Turning weeping willows into frozen chandeliers.
Some strung the coils of number eight into fences
As trail bikes took to the state highway with a roar
And the rain shower passed a plume
Over small towns that are hardly seen for hills.
Tarns prickle with bubbles from upland soakage
at the start of Wakatipu on mounts Humboldt and Forbes.
Pasture stands four- square
To the intersection of lakes Hawea and Wanaka, from where
Nat Chalmers shot the gorge in a flax raft with his guides
After descending Mount difficulty in flax sandals,
The first Pakeha to see Lake Wakatipu, for which he paid
Reko and Kaikora a three legged pot – Te Kohoa!
Viper’s bugloss is the honeyed heart of the hive and veranda shadows are dark as delphiniums.
The four-fold path of the farmer leads to hot and cold taps, the meat-safes a Muslim bag, but the kerosene lamp’s gone
The way of aunt Daisy’s and uncle scrim’s voices on the wireless
Or goals from the boot and pine-tree when rugby took a capital.
Braids of rivers run dreadlock plaits from a taniwha’s
Stone head, so his blind eyes spurt waterfalls
and his chest is the sucking valley of a mudslide,
when swollen rivers heave against mountain flanks
and sinkholes laden with silt roar old man floods here!
He’d ride the whaleboat molyneaux from its tributaries
To the sea, or disgorge the matau of its spears and hooks,
If they hadn’t drained the hydro-electricity, way back.
Rivers rule our lives, gurgling, puddling, dripping,
Working the lake country round like a greenstone,
Turning out a tiki of interlocking curves flowing
Into Waipounamu, which breathes its green glow,
Of purple grape froth trickling a ripe roses scent
And beetroot palate into our salad day memories.
Views of the lake in its many moods: sometimes quiescent,
Like a windowpane stippled with rain, behind which
Cucumber leafage and swollen twigs revolve, and you
Can imagine fridge-fulls of rare home brews,
Or spiced-plum brandy, tots doled out to travellers;
Sometimes waves snapping fierce enough to whip out
All the tent pegs in canvas-town, with a wind able to upturn a wedding marquess’s trestle tables tomorrow.
Days of wooden coach wheels bumping out of Ida valley on the old Dunstan road in journeys of the pioneers.
Days realising meteorological balloons into a delicate apricot sky
In this landscape we invent, as it invents us –
From rock flake and spring water, from a skiff of froth
Tumbling over a weir into the after glow of the Aurora


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Favorite Thing: -

You cannot exactly call this stretch of beach along the township’s lakeshore a beach. There is enough space for some towels and sunbathers, and the ground is just gravel.

Adding to that, the water of Lake Wakatipu is rather cold – which is no surprise as it is fed by glacier water. In summer the water is only two degrees warmer than in winter.

But what do you want? In the hot and dry Otago summers everybody should be happy about refreshments, whatever kind they are ;-)


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Favorite Thing: This part of the lakeside has been updated to a kind of entertainment centre, with some restaurants, bars, a small casino, and the office and pier of the TSS Earnslaw.

As this area which borders the Boardwalk is a strictly pedestrian area, it is very nice to sit there outdoors and enjoy a pleasant evening.

The Boardwalk Restaurant is famous for its wonderful seafood dishes. Frasers Bar & Grill is quite pleasant. Also the Minus 5° Ice Bar and the Yacht Club are located there. You get Italian fare at Luciano’s. Finz Down Under is also specialised in seafood. The Wai Waterfront Restaurants serves NZ fare. The Juice Stop completes the places you can enjoy.


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Favorite Thing: Bob’s Peak is the hill (come call it mountain…) on which the summit station of the Gondola is located. It sits 450 metres above the lake. Getting up there by Gondola is the fastest way to get a great view of Queentown and the surrounding mountains.

Some statistical details about the Gondola:

• Bottom Terminal Elevation: 340m
• Top Terminal: 790m
• Vertical Rise: 450m
• Total Length: 730m
• Incline Angle: average of 37.1 degrees
• Average Speed: Variable to 3.5m/sec
• Capacity: 700 people/hour in 26 four-person cabins
• Operating Hours: Open daily from 9am until late


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Favorite Thing: -

You will not find a lot of appealing buildings in Queenstown. I have to think hard to remember more than Eichardt’s Private Hotel at the lakefront, and St. Peter’s, a little Anglican stone church which unfortunately has been squeezed from all sides in the last some years. When I first was in Queenstown in the early nineties, there was space around the church, and people were lying on the lawn and taking a sunbath.

When you come back from a cruise on the Earnslaw you get an impressive view of the dreadful architecture along the lakefront, multi-storey apartment- and hotel buildings of cheapish look, like piled prison cells. It is clear that you will have fantastic views from all those boxes, especially from the balconies, and life inside the boxes can be very pleasing, as the interiors seem luxurious in many of the buildings. But just the look is not much better than blocks of social housing developments.

The only street look I really like is The Mall, Queenstown’s main (pedestrian) shopping and restaurant street. Along Marine Parade – alongside Eichardt’s Private Hotel - they are trying to recreate a kind of old charm. Looking out to the lake from The Mall, past the W.G. Rees statue, is quite nice. But architecturally, nothing in and around the town centre would excite me. The opposite is the case, when you venture further outside and pass at the multi-million dollar mansions.

The big rest reflects Queenstown’s big business approach towards tourism. One booking agency beside the other, for example, in Shotover Street which runs parallel to Beach Street/Lake Esplanade, shop windows covered in posters and some other advertising items.


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