South Island Holiday - Arrowtown and Walter Peak

 It's always such a bonus to have a two night stay on these coach tours, instead of packing up and moving on each morning.   In saying that, there was a lot packed in to our stay at Queenstown.   First things first, just look at this fabulous morning view looking out of my hotel room at Lake Wakatipu.

Early morning view

After breakfast we climbed aboard our coach which drove us to nearby Arrowtown.  The Arrow River became famous in 1862 when William Fox discovered alluvial gold close to where the town now stands.  This pretty little town boasts carefully preserved wooden cottages on the tree lined streets, and many of the historic buildings have been converted to tourist shops.  I did enter the Gold Nugget gold shop, hoping to find a suitable gold charm for my charm bracelet.  But couldn't believe it when I was told they only have silver charms for sale.  While I was there, another customer asked to see the biggest gold nugget they had, don't know if they purchased it as the asking price was sky high! 

The main road in Arrowtown

Later in the afternoon it was time for one of the highlights of the trip to me, a cruise to Walter Peak Station, aboard TSS Earnslaw, I had never been to Walter Peak Station before.  Our group, together with a large number of other passengers, gathered at the Steamer Wharf, the home of the steel hulled Earnslaw.  This ship was built in Dunedin, then completely dismantled, hauled by rail to Kingston, where it was reassembled and launched on Lake Wakatipu in 1912.  She is the last of many steamships that once worked on the lake.  The passenger loading soon got underway, we all hurried up the gangplank to find a seat, and settled down to enjoy the journey.  I was interested to look down at the working engines, the steamship gets through a ton of coal an hour, and is capable of 13 knots.

The engine room

And then, after 45 minutes of cruising, the beautiful elegant buildings of Walter Peak Station came into view.  This was founded in the 1860s and is one of the oldest sheep and cattle stations in the country.  It is still a working farm, and now hosts many many visitors to its BBQs, lunches and dinners during the season.

A glamorous place for our dinner

I must admit that the food was amazing, so much choice that I really didn't know where to start.  I remember enjoying salmon (of course, on of my favourites) and something quite different for me, paua pate.  Then I saw one of my tablemates coming back with some lamb, and had to ask where she found that.  There were several rooms set out with buffet food, and I had obviously missed one of them.  The desserts were tiny little portions of this and that delight, so we could take several without feeling guilty.  I asked one of the staff members to take a photo of my table.  There was only one husband amongst us, the rest were ladies on their own.

Dining at Walter Peak Station

After our wonderful dinner, most of the group went to see the sheep shearing.  My back had been very painful over the last few days so I decided not to do the gentle climb up, and went and sat, with several others who felt the same, outside the homestead.  It was a lovely peaceful place to sit and relax.

And then, here she comes!  The Earnshaw was not only coming to collect us, but was bringing another boat full of passengers for the later dinner booking.  We waited patiently till they all disembarked, then it was our turn to board.  Sit down by the piano, our host told us all, so we all squeezed down that end.

TSS Earnslaw arriving to collect us

It soon became clear why our group was sitting by the piano, seems the tour group had booked these seats for us especially.  Once we were underway, the songbooks were handed out, and the pianist starting tickling the ivories.  They were old songs, a lot of war songs and even older,  but surprisingly, I knew the words to most of them.  What fun, we all had a great time, singing lustily at the top of our voices.  There was another tour group onboard of Asians, and someone commented that they were all looking at us with interest, probably wondering at the behaviour of these rather noisy elderly Kiwis!

The songbook

The coach was waiting for us at the Steamer Wharf, we climbed aboard, and were taken up the hill to our hotel.  What a great day we had.  And another full day was planned for the next day.