We started by driving the short distance to the Shotover Jet. This is a centre where you can take a trip on a water-jet powered boat up and down the Shotover river. Jason had booked a ride but I decided to stay on the shore and take photos. After seeing the fairly violent way that the boat is manoeuvred around the river canyon I feel that I made the right choice although Jason had a good time.
The high concrete bridge over the Shotover river canyon
Zooming through the canyon
Getting closer
Flying past
After recovering from the jet-boat experience with a cup of tea from the café next to the Shotover Jet centre we headed into Queenstown. We didn’t find a space in the carpark that we used yesterday but found that parking was easy on Lake Esplanade road on the shore of Lake Wakatipu. This was just a short walk back to the harbour where our steamboat cruise was departing from. The TSS Earnslaw has been operating on Lake Wakatipu since 1912. Built in Dunedin at a cost of £20,860 (roughly £1 million in today’s prices) she was transported by rail to the land-locked lake and reassembled.
Until the building of a road after the second world war boats like the Earnslaw were the only form of communication for the sheep farming communities at the northern end of the lake. Once that commercial era was over for her she became a passenger cruise ship. Still steam powered the Earnslaw can do 11 knots flat out but at that speed she burns a ton of coal an hour!
The TSS Earnslaw steamed past us as we walked to the harbour for our cruise
By the time we’d walked to the harbour the Earnslaw had docked. We waited for the crew to load some more coal then claimed some seats on the main deck. As part of its conversion to a tourist cruise boat some large holes were cut in the main deck to allow passengers to watch the crew stoke the engines. The problem is that this makes the cabin rather hot and stuffy. After exploring the ship I decided to brave the cold and drizzly weather outside.
A rather overcast view of Queenstown as we headed up the lake. Good luck to the paragliders!
At the north end of the lake there’s the village of Glenorchy and the Walter Peak high country farm. As the weather was so poor we didn’t bother getting off. After a brief stop at Walter Peak the Earnslaw set off back in the direction of Queenstown. I caught the tail end of a guided walk of the boat which was really interesting and I wish I’d taken the full tour. It finished at the bridge where the captain was happy to answer questions whilst steering the boat.
After docking back at Queenstown harbour we walked into the town centre and had a late lunch at a Thai restaurant. From there we went back to the campervan and drove it to the “Caddyshack City” mini golf course. Me and Jason played a close fought round. We were level on strokes going into the last hole. I pared it and Jason double-bogeyed so I won!
From there we headed back to the campsite at Arthurs Point. It was the last night of this part of the holiday so we had a relaxing evening.