Day 17 - Queenstown to Arrowtown, 28.5km, 6 hours 30 minutes

The Kawarau River.  This was the first major waterway on trail I didn't swim in - it was just too swift!

With an easy, if longish, day in prospect, I rocked my sock and sandal ensemble.  Janine assured me, while out of place in downtown Queenstown, I would feel right at home wearing this in the more artsy environs of Arrowtown. My last minute sandal purchase, prompted by Karen, has proved a boon, and been used for probably 25% of my kilometers walked so far - all the easy stuff.

To summarize the day - a fascinating days walking, by turns beautiful and interesting.

Hamish dropped me off in his way to work in the Queenstown CBD. In the process of making my way to the lake front to get on the TA route, I banged into Neil who had just grabbed himself a coffee before starting the same route I was walking later in the day. It seems we can't get away from each other! No bad thing, it's great spending time with him on the track.

There followed a beautiful walk along the lake to Frankton, before stopping for a morning tea coffee at a boat shed Cafe in Frankton.

Walking around the airport wasn't exactly the quietest part of the trail.  Helicopters and planes were taking off at least once a minute, the sounds bouncing back off nearby Kelvin Heights and the Remarkables to form quite the sensory experience.


After a small diversion past the recycling center I realised I was going the wrong way and doubled back.  Never mind, once on the correct path I got a good view of the poo ponds, so had the dubious pleasure of taking in the Queenstown dump and sewage works in the space of 5 minutes.

The official trail crosses the Shotover on an historic bridge, but I didn't bother, knowing the river was fordable from the night before.


The trail to Arrowtown follows a joint biking/walking track. I got quite used to being buzzed by eBikes throughout my mornings work. They're always easy to tell, they go flying past with not nearly enough revolutions on the pedals to support such a speed.

Queenstown still seems to be a hive of building activity, similar to the Christchurch CBD in many ways, especially on the outskirts around Frankton.

One such subdivision under construction took me to a beautiful shaded walk along the Karawau, albeit with the constant thrum of jet boats plying the river.  That, along with the deceptively swift current, was enough to postpone thoughts of a swim, instead deciding to wait a couple of kilometers for Lake Hayes.



Before reaching the lake itself there was a bit of a quirky subdivision to negotiate.

There were some interesting legal themed street names:
Dispute Way.
Judge and Jury Drive.


It put me to mind of a town I had visited in New Mexico once called, "Truth Or Consequences". They had changed their name to that of a radio game show for some bizarre reason.  Despite (or perhaps because of) its name, it wasn't a town of much consequence.  I guess at least they still had the truth to fall back on.

And so to Lake Hayes.  This had once been part of the Frankton arm of Lake Wakatipu, but had been cut off as material was dumped by the Shotover River, one of the largest load bearing rivers in the world. This created a lake that is very shallow at the Queenstown end. . Disappointingly it didn't look at all good for swimming, almost a toxic bloom yellow colour.



Fortunately the far end dives off to a decent depth and was excellent for a bit of R&R and swimming.

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I had a bit of a giggle at their kowhai planting program. I love kowhai, they're one of my favourite trees. However the sign they had erected promoting the "celebrating and cherishing" of these trees was rather unfortunately located directly in front of a dead copse of them (as an aside, should the plurality for a collection of dead trees be a corpse of trees?).

Never mind, at least they have possibly the world's best letterbox.


The day ended in interesting fashion, with a walk through Millbrook, one of New Zealand's premier golf resorts. I stopped here for a late lunch of a pastrami roll, fries and a beer overlooking a Sawgrass 17th style island green.  It made for entertaining stuff with more drops than Karen when she's getting over surgery (she's forever breaking stuff in the week after she's had anesthetic).

However the beer went straight to my legs and made for a tiring last couple of kilometers into Arrowtown. A dip in the Arrow River at the finish was a very welcome pick me up.

Finally, it may still be the height of summer, but Arrowtown is already starting to show some of its stunning Autumn colour.

Tomorrow I'm into the hills for a couple of days on my way to Wanaka.