Otago

Otago is the second from bottom region of mainland New Zealand. To its south is the imaginatively named Southland, whilst, to the west, is the equally inspired West Coast:


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For current purposes, what's important is that it contains Queenstown. I've written before about Queenstown and, I have to confess, it's not my favourite town in NZ. Its setting is beyond perfection - sitting on Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by majestic, snow-capped mountains. In a country of superlatives, Queenstown must be in the running for the best situated town. What a pity they built Queenstown there instead of something nice.

About 70km to the north of Queenstown is Wanaka, situated on the lake of the same name. About half-way between the two is Cardrona, an old gold-mining town and my home for four days.

After emptying what needed to be emptied and filling what needed to be filled, I returned my van to to the hire company who then gave me a lift along to the airport where I met Rosanne, an airline pilot based in Christchurch who is a friend of my friends Alex and Brock in Melbourne. She and I flew down to Queenstown:

These days, flying has become much less enjoyable - seemingly just a sequence of inconvenient steps before being crammed into a tiny seat. For our domestic, turbo-prop flight, the only pause between the street and the aircraft was to have our boarding passes scanned. The lady in the yellow vest in the picture is about to tell me that photography is not permitted. What a shame she wasn't about 5 seconds quicker...

Our accommodation must rank amongst the best in the region. Nominally a bed and breakfast, the Waiorau Homestead is pretty much the nicest place I've ever stayed. It's set in a little copse with extensive grounds containing a Pétanque pitch, firepit, hot tub, swimming pool...

 The views are stunning:

 

In that last picture, the patch of snow in the gap between the trees is part of the Cardona Alpine Resort. If you know where to look, you can just make out one of the chair lifts, which was accessible from a little car park some 4km below the main car park.

The B&B even has (or would have) its own curling rink:

Unfortunately, it's been a very warm spring in New Zealand and the curling rink was more of a shallow pond.

More or less across the main road from the B&B was the turn off for the ski area, though it was a good 20 minute drive up a tightly twisting road with vertiginous drops for the unwary before you reached the ski area.

Cardrona is a good, mixed resort with plenty of good areas for beginners and pistes for all abilities. It's a little limited if you're looking for seriously challenging black runs, but none of our party were. Its only real drawback was the incredibly slow main access chairlift which is a pity as, apart from the Valley View lift I mentioned before, every single visit to the resort will probably include at least one ride on this lift. It's the one nearer to the camera in that picture, for what it's worth.

These are the other three in our group - left to right they are, Alex, Brock and Rosanne. Just to prove I was actually there, here's one of me:

You might have to take my word for it, but that's me on the right.

Having skied Cardrona for two days, we thought we'd ring the changes on our third day and headed for Treble Cone, on the other side of Wanaka. This turned out to be a major mistake. The weather wasn't co-operating as it was very cloudy (or foggy; we had an in-car argument about the difference) which wasn't the resort's fault but what was their fault was the wildly misleading description of some of their runs as suitable for beginners. Even under ideal snow conditions, the only route back to the car park would be steep and narrow and, on the day we visited, the snow was a long way short of ideal - deep piles of ice crystals with the texture of damp sugar. For Alex and I who are both reasonably good skiers, the conditions were a serious challenge. For the other two, it was amazing that they made it down at all without injury. We passed lots of people who were picking themselves out of the snow. We even passed one girl who had given up entirely and was walking down.

The lift passes we had were good for both Cardrona and Treble Cone but, as we discovered, only one per day. So, having used the lift once at TC, we could no longer return to Cardrona without buying new passes, which we were reluctant to do. The TC staff couldn't have cared less that they'd charged us $97 for a single ride, but then, why should they? They'd done well on the deal.

Suddenly finding ourselves with a day to spare, we first stopped at one of the many vineyards in the area:

 For a tasting session:

After which, we had a wander round Wanaka, a much nicer town than Queenstown.

For the afternoon, we returned to the B&B, changed, and then headed for Arrowtown, a very picturesque town about 20km east of Queenstown:

The centre of the town is full of lovely old buildings, many dating to the late 19th century gold rushes that are the reason the town's here at all.

The road from Queenstown to Cardrona rises around 700 metres in about 10 km - more of the hair-pin bends that I'd experienced on my way up to Denniston, or on the access road to the Cardona resort. It does, though, have some stunning views:

Just above and to the left of the centre of the second picture is the runway of Queenstown airport. Rosanne's company, Jet Star, flies into Queenstown and she took great delight in scaring us with the details of the approach, which winds its way through the mountains. It's even more scary if you're coming from the other direction and have to carry out a missed approach. Some things you'd just rather not know, but, certainly, it's a dramatic approach and departure - looking up at the cars on the mountain road several minutes after departure is a new experience for me.

On our final morning, we took a ride up the Queenstown Gondola which provides stunning views of the surrounding countryside:

This being New Zealand, there is, of course, an opportunity to do something insanely stupid:

It would take something with more power than wild horses to make me try Bungee jumping under any circumstances but I cannot think what incentive you would have to offer me to throw myself off a platform into that clearing in the forest. Kiwis, though, are a strange lot sometimes. Lovely, but strange.

After returning our hire car it was time to catch the Melbourne flight.

This time, nobody told me that photography wasn't allowed.