We didn’t have anything in particular planned for today, so we decided to go for a leisurely drive. Jan suggested we head up to Arrowtown, a historic gold mining town that has been updated and turned into a local tourist attraction. We discovered later that today Arrowtown was hosting a NZ Gin Festival, where you could taste up to twenty different local varieties of Gin. I like Gin, but this did not sound like a good idea at 11:00 AM when I still had to drive back to Queenstown. We decided against attending the festival (good thing too, as it was sold out) but the traffic made driving through town looking for parking our first “adventure” of the day. Google maps wasn’t much help so we were about to give up and head out of town when we spotted the perfect parking spot pretty much by accident.

The main business street of Arrowtown has been restored and now houses museums, local craft stores, restaurants, and bars. Some of the original houses have also been restored, like these.

After a pleasant stroll through he shops, we had lunch at a local pub in a building that had originally been the stables. I mentioned earlier that I had to drive in the afternoon … on the left side of the road … so a pint of the local brew seemed like a bad idea. I decided to do some market research and try a local non-alcoholic beer.

I was about to say that “I did not hate it” but decided that wasn’t fair. It actually wasn’t too bad, but I’m still having a real hazy ale while I’m writing this post.

While we were eating lunch, the local birds were keep a close eye on us, hoping for crumbs.

After lunch, it was back to the hotel to pack for tomorrow, and to take one more walk along the lake into central Queenstown. This time we took a detour through Queenstown Gardens, giving me an excuse to take more nature pictures.

There were also bee hives in the gardens – about 20-30 hives enclosed in a wire fence, presumably to keep idiot tourists out. The bees were very obvious, and I had no desire to go closer … though they were fascinating to watch from a safe distance.

Tomorrow we drive to Te Anau. We head south along Lake Wakatipu, and then west toward Te Anau, where we will spend the night before our visit to Milford Sound. Here is a picture showing where we will be headed tomorrow.

I titled this post “Wandering and Wondering”, because we have already started wondering when we will be back again.