Arrowtown

After we had some time to recover from our big hiking weekend, we decided for another trip up to Queenstown area.  We heard there was a nice little town called Arrowtown about 30 minutes from there so we thought we'd give it a go.

Queenstown is situated on Lake Wakatipu.  It is a LONG lake.  Queenstown is about 2 hours away, and 30-40 minutes of that drive is on the shore of this long lake. I think it is something like 80km long.  It's nice though because it is very scenic once you get there.  Blue skies make for very blue water.

The winding highway along the shore is very curvy and slow going with rapid rises and falls.  This stretch of road is lovingly known as "The Devil's Staircase."  Very scenic drive.

We went north from Queenstown to get to Arrowtown.  A quaint little miner town where they struck gold long long ago.  Lots of little shops.  Rebecca likes the great little fabric store they have.  Cole and I like it because there is another Patagonia Chocolates here!

Jewelry stores are filled with local New Zealand green stone and jade sculpted into lots of traditional Maori shapes and styles.  It makes for some serious bling if you are into green...

Before the beautiful lupin fields near Mount Cook, we got our first sight of the lupin in Arrowtown down near the river that runs near town.  Such a graceful form.

There were nice tree covered trails down the river which we walked for a little while before lunch was calling.

They say that Fall in Arrowtown is amazing with all the foliage changing.  We will be back then for sure.  I guess that's April here... weird...

I have NO idea what these are, if anyone has any guesses, please let us know in the comments below.  They are pretty anyways!

After a last stop at Patagonia, we headed back to Queenstown again for dinner and headed home.  Someone had left a puzzle in our house that we finally completed.  Can you tell where it is?  That's right!  Queenstown!  Maybe we'll have to try to hunt down a hot air balloon...

Later that weekend Rebecca got some giant New Zealand peonies.  Apparently they grow very well down here (like everything else in this fertile land).  They export them before they open up.  We had them around for Rebecca's birthday and a few more for Thanksgiving too.