Arrowtown

We drove along State Highway 6 almost back to Queenstown, before turning off to arrive in the picturesque Arrowtown. Arrowtown was a town built on gold, discovered in 1862, but since then has remained and is now a popular holiday spot. The town has retained a lot of the old buildings, suitably restored, and is full of shops selling stuff that people don't need, and cafés and restaurants.

We selected Café Mondo more or less at random, and had a perfectly acceptable lamb burger and pear & blue cheese salad. I washed mine down with a couple of cold Moas, which meant that Nicola had command of the car keys for the rest of the afternoon.

Sculpture in the café courtyard

There are a number of walks in and around Arrowtown and we may take the opportunity to do one of these later in the week. As it was, we started one, looking for a LOTR site, which may or may not have been here:

We'll have to check the locations book when we get home to find out what was filmed here.

After a quick paddle through the river, and an exploration of the shops, we then headed back along SH6, also known as the Gibbston Highway (as it passes through the Gibbston Valley), where we stopped at the imaginatively-named Gibbston Valley Winery. We tasted some of their wines, including a notable Le Fou Riesling. They also make their own cheeses on the premises, so we went and tasted them in the shop next door as well. 

Further along the Gibbston Highway we stopped at a lookout over Roaring Meg, a tributary of the Kawarau river, which is now the site of a hydro-electric power station. As we were admiring the scenery, we noticed some people in the water: yes, it seems that the sport of "putting on a wetsuit and being swept downriver in a raging torrent" is a popular pastime in this area!

Mad kiwis