Arrowtown & Wanaka

 After emerging from the road to Moke Lake, Sharyl piloted the RV back through Queenstown, and another 15 -20 minutes beyond to Arrowtown.

Arrowtown is a picturesque Gold Mining town set on the Arrow River.  Many old stone buildings occupy the main streets, and a trail leads through the forest along the side of the Arrow River for miles in both directions out of town.  Because of its close proximity to Queenstown it appears to get pretty significant day visitors coming in to eat, shop, and hike.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and we went to a place called The Fork and Tap for lunch, where Sharyl took the opportunity to try what turned out to be a very good local Stout and I had a local APA.  The restaurant had a kids area with big metal dump trucks, excavators and the like - River was lost to the toys, refusing to eat as he pushed his dump truck around the kids area and through the deck area of the restaurant.  Sharyl picked him up a cool wooden toy car so that he would break his grip on the restaurant toys (she anticipated the meltdown and ran to the toy store nearby before we had to leave).  From there we grabbed a coffee and set off on a walk along the Arrow River.  

Based on the signage you can hike all the way to Queenstown- nearly 30 km away via the trails leading up the river and out of town.  Our trek wasn’t anywhere near that long, but even so we loved it - the Arrow River has so many idyllic spots that even our short walk turned up several.  

Though we hadn’t really earned it from our walk, we still stopped at Patagonia Chocolates for some ice cream.

Then it was on to Wanaka.  Because we are in an RV we had to take a slightly slower route back down to Cromwell and then up to Wanaka, rather than up past the Cardrona Ski Area which is situated right between Arrowtown and Wanaka, yet on a road the RV rental company forbids us to drive in an oversized vehicle. 

As it turns out, we were happy we took the slightly longer way to Wanaka, if only to fully appreciate the differences between Queenstown and Wanaka.  The drive to Queenstown involves pretty windy narrow roads along deep gorges and valleys.  While the drive is beautiful- it is also stressful and thinking about driving it in a big rainstorm or even with snow on the ground is a bit hairy.  Wanaka’s road in on the other hand is wide and meandering through an agricultural area.  Certainly less dramatic than the road to Queenstown, but also much more comfortable to consider driving in foul weather.

Entering into Wanaka another difference becomes clear, where Queenstown is perched on steep sided mountains above Lake Wakatipu, Wanaka rests easily on a gradual slope and rolling hills above Lake Wānaka.  Both towns have a backdrop of the Southern Alps, and in truth Queenstown’s steep sided mountains make for more jaw dropping views, but Wanaka looks out towards Mount Aspiring National Park - one of New Zealand’s highest peaks, and many rugged mountains surround the lake.  The town also is just much less busy.  It is still a tourist town, and a ski town, but it has wide streets, separated bike paths, and a lot less traffic (in fact no traffic so far).  

We got to our lakefront condo, and Sharyl shoehorned the RV into our designated space (though the town has plenty of space, condos apparently still have small parking stalls).  We dropped our bags, and walked along the lakefront toward the main restaurant zone.  Along the lakefront is a separated bike path, a park, and a playground with a dinosaur slide that Reef was pretty excited about.  There was also an interesting sculpture of a giant hand which Reef climbed himself up on.

From the park we walked across the street to Francesca’s Italian Kitchen.  As we waited a few minutes for our table I wandered over to a little bridge that was in a green strip running along next to the restaurant- it turned out to be a crystal clear stream flowing right next to the restaurant in the middle of town (in the photo it looks like there’s no water because it’s so clear, but it’s actually about an 8 foot wide fast flowing stream).

River was tired and hungry and making a scene, but thankfully our server said he had two nine year old twin boys, so he was 100% cool with anything River was doing.  The food (especially the Gnocchi Sharyl got, and the Pesto the boys got) was to die for, as was the wine.  Even though the place was busy our server kept stopping and talking story with us, Sharyl picked up on his accent and found out he was from Scotland, St. Andrew’s specifically, and had moved to Wanaka in 2019.  He was also a great source of information about winters in the area , other restaurants to visit, his favorite local breweries (Wanaka has four), he even brought me, unprompted and complementary, a half pint of his favorite local beer - which was excellent.  After dinner we came to find out his name is Allan and he and his wife own the restaurant.  Both Sharyl and I were shocked the owner - on a busy night - is spending so much time casually chatting with a family who doesn’t live in the area and has a two year old periodically screaming at full volume.  Turns out he and his wife also own a place called Wanaka Homestead.

We walked back to the condo thoroughly impressed with Wanaka.  While we are already missing Moke Lake, we are happy to have the next few days to explore this awesome town.