Arrowtown

I decided to go to Arrowtown today. Arrowtown is about a 20 minute drive from Queenstown and there are tour buses that leave every few hours. I had just missed the 10.30 so I had to wait for the 12.00 bus. On the bus our driver dude gave us a bit of commentary and history of Arrowtown.

Arrowtown is an old gold mining settlement situated along the Arrow River. After the Europeans had mined the gold they got chinese immigrants in to do some more whilst they moved on to seemingly better pickings.

The museum explains alot of this, I just read it in the Lonely Planet! Seriously though I went and walked through the chinese settlement, it's all ruins now but there are boards explaining the history and showing photos of how it once looked. Some of the buildings remain and it's surprising how tiny they are! Smaller than an average garden shed and entire families lived - slept and ate in these!

After this I walked along the river to find the part of the river where Arwen and Frodo are on horseback escaping the black riders and Arwen conjures up the tidal wave! I found it and it was very nice and you could kinda see how it was but not much! It's funny as other sites that I have seen from LOTR have been quite realistic and easy to imagine as they were in the film! The river was lovely though and is also used for gold panning still! I was going to rent a gold pan and instruction leaflet but it started spitting so I took some photos and headed back into town!

Arrowtowns main street is very nice! It has some lovely little shops along it. My favorite was the Remarkables Sweet Shop! Now I don't particularly like sweets but this shop was reminscent of the Harry Potter Sweet Shop with big jars of sweets on wall racks! The sweet shop also sold homemade fudge and I bought some cappucino flavored fudge! They also import choccies and sweets so I stocked up on polos!

I had a wee wonder through the shops and grabbed a bite to eat before I headed back!

On the bus returning to Queenstown I met Nicola from Kent. We got chatting and decided to go to -5 bar tonight.

We met a little bit later and headed to -5 bar. This bar is quite special as it is made of ice! You have to wear big coats and special shoes to go in! You get a cocktail in an ice glass as well! There are ice sculptures and possum fur on the seats! Our favorite sculpture was the sheep! The bar maid is from London so we were all having a good old chat and as I didn't like any of the cocktails on the list she made me a Sex on The Beach instead! I've renamed it Sex on The Ice! Your only allowed to stay in there for half an hour so we headed to Winnies after this and had two for one drinks! We met a couple of English lads and got chatting to them mainly about Thailand as that is where Nicola is off next and they've just come from there! After this I had free drinks vouchers for the World Bar so we ended up there but I had forgotton my ID so they wouldn't serve me! I managed to get Kedeesha one of the girls from my bus to get it for me! I felt 17 again!

We only stayed in World Bar for one as I couldn't get anymore so we headed for the Altitude bar where I got ID'd again! Luckily the bouncer let me in this time! So we stayed in Altitude for the rest of the night as both Nic and I bumped into loads of people we knew! I was planning on an early night as I have a long day going from Queenstown to Christchurch tomorrow!