Arrowtown – 25 January 2021

Main street Arrowtown

We took the bus to Arrowtown.  They have quite a good system in Queenstown where a journey only costs $2 and compared to Wellington you can be going quite good distances.  It does require you to buy a “Bee” card like the Snapper or Opal(for those in Australia) which provides the subsidy.

It seems they want to encourage bus use but here everyone appears to drive and SUVs and Utes outnumber small cars like ours by about 4 to 1, I would think. 

I have been to Arrowtown several times and it is certainly a pretty little village seemingly unchanged from a century ago.  However, the house prices we were told were astronomical with modest houses going for a million dollars or more. 

We had a pleasant lunch of Blue Cod and chips at a delightful old cottage and then Bev went looking at the shops while I found a nice place to sit and read my book.  We then looked at a wine shop before going for a walk alongside the river which is really just a stream. 

We came across a skateboard park and it has to be the first one  I have ever seen that is not festooned with graffiti.  The kids using it were much younger than the ones using a similar one in Wellington so perhaps that accounts for it.  Either that or the parents force the kids to clean up any graffiti that they do.  We did however marvel at their agility.

After our little walk we got the bus and headed back to Frankton.  So far we have not had to use a car, in fact the only reason we might have had to was to go further afield and visit some wineries in Cromwell.  We could have visited all the wineries in the Gibbston Valley if we had started our ride earlier. 

On the way back to our hotel we called into the garage to see when the car would be ready and were told that the parts were on their way and we should have it the following afternoon.   A wave of hope descended upon us both.


Miners store and bank

Arrow River

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A farmers market and back to Nelson – 31 January 2021

Image
  One of my favourite farmers' markets is the Marlborough version.   It is not as big as the Hawkes Bay market.   For a long time it only had Marlborough producers but now several producers from Nelson come over and vice versa.   We had a nice wander around and it was a pity we were not heading back Wellington as I would have loaded up with vegetables and fruit.   In the end we had a nice cup of coffee,   something to eat and bought some nice preserves.     In Nelson we stayed again with our friends.   We visited Kiwi Journeys which was nearby, had our briefing for the Good Taste Cycle Trail ride.   The information they provided was very good and their customer service is as good as we have experienced.   The bike mechanic even had a look at our bikes; fixing up a brake and putting air into tyres as well playing with the gears.   I have not had that done before when we have used our own bikes.   We t...
Read more

GTT – a day of two halves – 3 February 2021

Image
  We had a relatively early start as the distance we were riding was longest of the ride.   We had to be at Ngatimoti – about 25 kms away for a pre-booked lunch and after that transported to Tapawera.   The was thus, Kaiteriteri to Ngatimoti and then Tapawera to Wakefield.   The Kaiteriteri entrance The previous day in the Mountainbike Park Bev’s brake cable had come away from its housing.   I managed to fix it satisfactorily, but I thought it might be wise to have it checked by a bike mechanic at Kiwi Cycles which was conveniently located where we were staying.   To get there, we had a short but very steep climb out of Little Kaiteriteri and then down to the bike shop.   The mechanic advised that that the cable needed some work but it was safe to ride in the interim.   Then it was back through the Mountainbike Park.   Bev was much more confident than yesterday and I also enjoyed it more - not being so exhausted.  ...
Read more

Waiting for a car……….. 27 January 2021

Image
  We were hoping the car might be finished today.   I had been told that the car was ok but when idling it apparently sounded like a tractor which had them worried.   All the fault lights were out so that at least was good.   They said they were doing more investigations and that they would let us know what would be happening.   The hotel gave us a late checkout, so we packed ready to go then wandered off to the boulanger in the shopping centre to have a snack and a coffee.   We had brought our books   to read so did that sitting in the shade (it was about 28 degrees).   Finally at 2:30pm we realised we wouldn’t be able to proceed with our travel plans for the day.   We wandered back to the hotel and informed them we were staying.   There was no problem booking an extra night.     The weather then decided to change as predicted and the temperature plummeted.   The rain came in but we were warm an...
Read more