So after our day of exercise yesterday, today we are heading to Queenstown – ‘the outdoor capital of the world’ not sure how active we will be so watch this space! We started the day by driving out towards Rob Roy Glacier, although we didn’t do the 3-4 hour walk to the Glacier face, this is a fantastic drive through the valley, we had a good view of Mount Aspiring, unfortunately the top of the mountain was in the cloud which it would have been nice to see, but the rest of view was great, we saw a number of waterfalls on route as well as the local farmers shearing sheep, interestingly one of them was completely naked, not sure if he had done it wrong or if he had lost a bet but although it was drizzle it was quite nice and warm so not a big deal!! We drove as far as the ford which actually wasn’t too deep but we decided not to go the final 6km as the road deteriorated even further and we didn’t have time to do the walk anyway so we took the opportunity to turn round, on the way back we came across a farmer moving his cows so we had to wait as they were not moving very fast but there were more of them than us. We drove to Queenstown along the Crown Range Road which has spectacular scenery and a number of switchback sections. As we drove over the top of the range (just under 2000m) we saw a cross country ski centre and a number of places to put on snow chains, despite the fact that unlike the others, this range doesn’t have any snow on it. We got to Arrowtown around 1pm so had some lunch before going for a walk round both the town and the Chinese settlement. This is a heritage village with a number of historical buildings on the high street. The town started in the 1860s when gold was found in the Arrow River, it was originally found by a Maori sheep shearer in 1862, but it was a European William Fox who made the find public and caused the town to be created. We went into the Museum, there is a really good exhibition of life in the gold town and a number of rolling photo displays of both miners and tourists from the late 1800s and early 1900s. We went from there to the Chinese settlement. The Chinese arrived in the early 1900s, we have been told in other gold towns that if the Europeans mined the area there may still be gold but if the Chinese worked the area then their won’t be any gold left! as they were systematic in looking for gold. Many believed that it was better to have a guaranteed small return than take a higher risk and possibly not make any money, they also believed that they would return home with enough money for retirement but unfortunately it seemed that a number didn’t go back. After walking round the Chinese settlement we walked back into Arrowtown and around the Main Street, a number of original buildings still exist but most have been turned into either cafes or clothes shops. We had spent a few hours here so decided it was time to finish the drive to Queenstown and find the apartment, we arrived about 4.30 and by the time we had unpacked the car we decided we would just have a relax and prepare for our assault on Queenstown tomorrow.
