Queenstown: New Zealand's number one tourist destination and the "World Capital of Limits"
After returning home, I talked about New Zealand with my colleagues, and my colleague's first reaction was that there is a Queenstown in New Zealand, which is praised as a city in paradise. With a permanent population of just over 10,000, this small city has replaced Auckland, New Zealand's only big city, as the country's largest foreign tourist city, which shows Queenstown's position in New Zealand's tourism landscape. Queenstown has an international airport (which mainly connects to many Australian cities) and foreign visitors don't even have to transit through Christchurch or Auckland to enter directly from here.
Lakeshore Park
Lake shore guest houses
Lake Wakatipu
Lake Wakatipu
Lake Wakatipu
downtown
There are not many tall buildings in Queenstown
Tourist funicular
The view of Queenstown is also really good. The narrow lake Wakatipu, which used to give Queenstown a convenient waterway, now gives it a transparent blue prospect, and is surrounded by high mountains of 1800 to 2000 meters, which not only form a height difference of more than 1,000 meters with the water surface, but also snow in autumn and winter. The wonderful thing is that the land also protrudes two narrow peninsulas into the lake, the one farther from the city becomes a golf course, and the one near the city is a public garden, so that the blue water surrounds you, all of which make Queenstown a unique and beautiful town.
Due to its rapid development, the limited flat land on the shore of the lake has long been occupied by buildings, and Queenstown can now be regarded as a mountain town. The guesthouse we booked was actually only ten minutes walking distance from the city center, but it was a very steep slope. There's a tourist funicular that you haven't seen anywhere else in New Zealand, and the ropeway stop is the best location to overlook the whole of Queenstown, as well as some paid entertainment that showcases New Zealand features such as Maori and kiwis. The ropeway is not high, in fact, there is a walking trail that can climb to the ropeway station, or even higher on the top of the mountain, that is a wilderness, I climbed to the top of the mountain and did not continue to go forward, it is estimated that this trail can climb over the mountain. There are also some less difficult trails around Queenstown that offer different angles of the city and the landscape.
Queenstown's standard image
Queenstown's distance from the world's largest cities, New Zealand is known as the loneliest country in the world, with the nearest being the South Pole besides Australia
ropeway
A moorland at the top of a hill
Walking trails, no more further
Look at Lake Wakatipu from a higher place
Another trail, through a forest
Climb to the top of the hill from this trail, which is another angle of Lake Wakatipu
It's off the beaten track and it's a great place to get away with it
Queenstown is the central stop of New Zealand's South Island tourism, which is the entrance to New Zealand's famous tourist destination fjord area, southwest to Niding, west to Mount Cook, north to the two glaciers, there are direct buses, not far away. Queenstown has positioned itself as the "Capital of the Limits of the World", as the world's first commercially operated bungee jump project originated here, on an old iron bridge on the outskirts of the city, which is still in operation today. Bungee jumping is the most popular extreme sport in Queenstown, and jet boats are also very popular, thanks to the many narrow and thrilling waterways around the city. Queenstown has so much to play, skydiving, diving, rock climbing... You can get almost everything you want, but these extreme items are generally expensive.
As a purely tourism city, Queenstown became New Zealand's most injured city after the COVID-19 outbreak. On July 1 this year, New Zealand will fully reopen, and it is believed that this paradise city will soon recover.
Arrowtown: A nineteenth-century gold rush town in search of the first Chinese to come to New Zealand
Queenstown is the starting point and supply depot for a large number of hiking trails in the surrounding area, and doc's service center is also located here. New Zealand's most famous multi-day hiking trail, the Milford Track, one of the top 10 hiking trails in the world, is very popular and must be booked for months in advance. Our original plan was to take a three-day Routeburn Track after arriving in Queenstown, take a boat trip to Milford Sound, and then return to Queenstown. However, when collecting the ticket, he was accused of blocking the road from the exit of the trail to the fjord by the weather and was not sure how many days it would be repaired. The plan given by doc is to expand the three-day hike to five to six days, the original way to go in, the original way to return, after considering the feeling of physical uncertainty, the impact on the back trip is also relatively large, so cancel the hiking plan, those three days became a relaxed but very expensive itinerary.
The museum in Arrowtown displays artifacts brought by the early Chinese of New Zealand
Local schools conduct traditional education at museums
The living buildings of the early gold diggers
The living buildings of the early gold diggers
Arrowtown maintains its nineteenth-century townscape
The chapel in the town
Now the town is also dominated by tourism, but much less touristy than Queenstown
The next day in Queenstown we went to neighboring Arrowtown and there were buses but very few departures. Arrowtown preserves a large number of nineteenth-century buildings that used to rely on the gold panning industry, and the ruins of the Gold Mining Village on the edge of the town show scenes from the lives of early gold diggers, primitive and difficult. This town is also one of the earliest footholds of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand, imagine the scene of overseas Chinese wandering here in the early years to make a living, the museum in the town shows a lot of early Chinese immigrants brought by the living utensils, in fact, for today's Chinese is also a little strange. I happened to meet a school in the museum for scene education, the children dressed in nineteenth-century costumes, and the teachers demonstrated how to educate children at that time - the palm of the hand.
Now Arrowtown also relies mainly on tourism, the Arrow River north of the town is a location for The Lord of the Rings, visitors can try to find gold here, and there is a trail to climb the mountainside, surrounded by a vast pasture between the mountains, wildflowers blooming, overlooking Lake Wakatipu, the scenery is magnificent.
Look at Arrowtown on the mountainside
Private pasture, fenced
Wildflowers on the hillside
alien
Te Anau: Rarely visited, it's home to New Zealand's second-largest lake and most famous firefly cave
Two of New Zealand's most famous fjords, Milford Sound and Humble Sound, can generally depart directly from Queenstown. We didn't have any plans to go to Double Sound, expensive. But because the hiking plan was canceled, it was decided to divert to the small town of Te Anau, from where it would take a tour of the fjord, closer together, and simply take a look at The Humble Sound.
Te Anau also has a lake of the same name, the second largest in New Zealand, the town has only a few hotels and inns, very quiet, rarely visited, and the atmosphere is very different from Queenstown. Facing Fiordland National Park, New Zealand's largest national park, Te Anau is also the nearest town with full service facilities, food and accommodation are guaranteed, long-distance buses have stops, the town can book cruises and other services, and can also buy a variety of outdoor equipment.
Te Anau Lake, with a slight service area on the shore of the lake, is inaccessible
Te Anau Lake on a rainy day
There is a shop in town that sells outdoor gear and tourist souvenirs
Te Anau has also become the most expensive place to spend on a trip to New Zealand, with Milford Sound day trip with car and boat for $130 per person (discounted price at backpackers), Doubtful Sound day trip at $298 per person, and Firefly Cave $62 per person. Explore Fiordland National Park from Te Anau with kepler Track, a time-consuming, time-consuming, 60-kilometer hike planned for 4 to 6 days. Of course, if the ability is very strong, it is possible to complete this 60 kilometers in a day, Te Anau will hold the Kepler Track Extreme Challenge every year, and the fastest record is only more than four hours.
New Zealand has a number of firefly caves, and Te Anau has one of the most famous, hidden deep on the shores of Lake Te Anau. Maori legend has this cave for a long time, but it was not rediscovered until 1948 and has been a tourist attraction ever since, from which the name of Te Anau Lake and town is derived. New Zealand fireflies are not the kind that fly in our country, but worms that live on the rock walls inside caves all year round, catching prey through glow and suspension in a dark environment. After changing boats to the cave, all lights will be turned off, asking visitors to remain silent, and thousands of fireflies in the dark are like bright stars, which makes people marvel and have to be in awe of this miracle of life. You should see a firefly cave in New Zealand, but you may not have to see Te Anau, this hole is a bit expensive.
Fjords: 101 Must-Do's Kiwi 1st and 2nd place
Reference website
101 Must-Do's Kiwi is a selection campaign launched by the New Zealand Tourism Information Media AA Group, where residents vote for the most worthwhile places in New Zealand, with two bays in Fiordland National Park in the south, Milford Sound and Double Sound, ranking first and second respectively.
Boat trip to the fjord, always remind me of our Three Gorges, if there is no water storage, the Three Gorges may look more rugged, and the landscape on both sides of the river is richer, now it has become a flat lake, the scenery seems to be still. New Zealand's fjords are the product of glaciation, the mountains are also very high, there are many waterfalls on both sides, the waterways are tortuous, and the length is not very long. After all, it is a bay, out of the bay you can see the endless sea, the inside of the fjord can see the figure of seals, penguins and dolphins.
Doubtful Sound is larger in scale, with relatively open water surfaces and more atmospheric views. The Doubtful Sound tour, run exclusively by Real Journey, takes you through Lake Manapouri, a dam power plant on the lake, and a change of car after a bit of road to reach the bay. After entering the bay, there is only one cruise ship, and the captain can even turn off the engine to let visitors "listen to the sounds of nature", the sound of the wind, the sound of the water, and the occasional bird song, really completely out of the world, which is completely impossible in Milford Sound.
Go to Milford Sound to book a local travel agency in Te Anau, the driver is an old lady, accompanied by two elderly people, this day trip is a bit of an old tour group meaning. The driver will choose to stop at several locations in the apprentice or take a short hike, in the morning is a small lake with a mirror effect, called mirror lake, and return to the apprentice to go to the Hollyford Valley, where there are two high waterfalls, sitting there for afternoon tea. The cruise ship in the middle is still Real Journey. Milford Sound has a large number of cruise ships, helicopters, small planes and other projects, in and out of the very lively, even the sea does not seem to be as clean as the Double Sound.
Mirror Lake
Mirror Lake
The driver said it was snow that had fallen to the flat ground by an avalanche
dolphin
Waterfall in Hollyford Valley, place for afternoon tea