Before we said goodbye to the beautiful Lake Wanaka, we decided to go visit one more time in the early morning before we headed to our next stop. We caught a little bit of sunshine before the clouds stumbled in and squeezed out a little condensation.
We then started our road trip over to Arrowtown, which was only a little short of an hour away. Along the way we caught some amazing sights and I got to drive some crazy roads on steep mountain edges, over deep canyons or tight hairpin turns. It was awesome!
The sky’s confusion on whether it should be rainy or sunny brought on a beautiful rainbow arch over our drive.
We then stopped for a short while in Cardrona as French tourists with a broken down car waved their arms in desperation at us to help sort them out. Numb nuts left their lights on and drained their batteries haha.
We then continued the gorgeous drive down from Wanaka to Arrowtown. From Cardrona onwards was my favourite part of the drive.
We then arrived in Arrowtown, a historic mining town that saw Europeans and Chinese settlers flock in for the gold rush. I was just loving the architecture. The quaint cottages never sitting above two stories that plonked all over the little town, the tall stark trees that looked like skeletons against the sky and the looming mountains in the background all added to the charming atmosphere of Arrowtown.
I strolled on over to the Chinese Villages which is where the Chinese miners settled during their time in Arrowtown. It was quite clever how they used the mountain sides to provide the majority of the walls for their homes. I couldn’t believe how small and simple they were though. They really would’ve lived it rough and cold during the New Zealand winters – especially coming from Guangdong which usually takes on a more tropical climate. It was interesting reading all of the stories. Most of them came to work hard for 5 years or so, so that they could have enough money to buy a farm back home and take care of their families. About 1 in 7 of the miners died though, so families never got to see them again or they lost contact with their families so could never go home. To add it, they were also ostracised by the European settlers and were considered chimpanzees of society. The Europeans dealt with them though as they thought chimpanzees would be better than no population at all (as a lot of the European miners had moved on to the West Coast once most of the gold was gone).
We then continued on to Queenstown after stopping by to enjoy the gorge for a little. From Arrowtown to Queenstown is only 20 minutes. Here, we enjoyed a Japanese lunch.
I’m allergic to seafood….. but I treated myself to a jumbo oyster famous from the North Island. I’ve never seen oysters so big, and holy mackerel (well, I mean oyster) it was the best one I have ever had in my life. It was super creamy. Oysters are pretty low on my allergy scale but I still did end up feeling pretty asphyxiated and sick so I crashed for a few hours in the hotel afterwards. It was worth it… PLEASE DON’T GIVE ME A LECTURE haha, I rarely treat myself, okay?
View from our hotel, woohoo! But not from our room, our room is on street level with a bus and van parking plot – it really is much more luxurious than this pathetic lake view.
Had a little stroll around town and then Mexican for dinner at Caribe Kitchen where I ate an arepa. SO GOOD. Brisbane needs to have arepas… I haven’t seen one before so if anyone actually knows of a place that has yummy ones – please, holler at your girl.
Today’s exhibition is none other than the gorgeous cottages and architecture of Cardrona and Arrowtown. It even includes some of the Chinese settlers’ bare minimum infrastructure to add some stark contrast. Please enjoy!
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