More of Queenstown

Because on the northern shore of Lake Hayes there is a large green area where self-contained campervans are allowed:

In the many nights we spent here, we tried different trees :) Everything close to water and toilets, hehe.

The lake and its small, rocky beach on the northern shore are also used a lot by local residents. Children splash in the water, people sunbathe, swim, jog, or kayak.

The first days in Queenstown were still quite cool and cloudy. Hannes still dared to go into the water...

Another very special feature of this campsite: The geese and ducks are soooo tame that they have no fear of humans anymore. (Only when dogs approach, they all fly into the water, making a lot of noise.)

Eventually, after about four days, summer finally arrived! Now we could lounge outside and repeat our lost tan for weeks.

Here Anette is stuffing herself with healthy chips....

...and afterwards she's frying off the fat in the sun - in vain :D

The ducks also visit us at the beach: Are they imitating Anette's leg position?

Unfortunately, there's no picture of that, but the duck in the middle actually walked over Anette's leg, hehe.

The geese are not as approachable and also louder:

We're not that colorful:

But we still find ourselves photogenic:

++++++++++ Arrowtown +++++++

A few minutes north of Lake Hayes is an old, small town that originated during the gold rush. Today, the buildings in Arrowtown are nicely prepared for tourists:

Arrowtown is also surrounded by beautiful nature and - of course - has been used for a few Lord of the Rings film shots.

Somewhere in this river, the opening scene was filmed, where Isildur loses 'the One Ring':

A little upstream from here, the scene was also filmed where Arwen and Frodo save themselves from the Ringwraiths with the help of the river.

As I said - sports are also not far away from Queenstown:

The gold rush in Arrowtown lasted from 1862 until the 20th century. The last gold prospector supposedly didn't give up until the 1990s!

In the middle years of the active gold rush, it was the Chinese who produced gold here. An exhibition is dedicated to these Chinese settlers and recreates the tiny huts in which the Chinese lived...

The houses are even too small for Anette :)

Luxurious outdoor toilet:

...it is also explained that these settlers from China were victims of media persecution and were never accepted by white New Zealanders, no matter how long they worked in this country:

This is how New Zealanders saw Chinese people: As greedy, leprous, dirty Chinamen who robbed and exploited the country of its gold...

That's why the Chinese settlers stayed even more among themselves than they already did and never lost touch with their families in their home country. Many sent partly hard-earned money home or allowed relatives to make the expensive journey to New Zealand.

A newspaper article from 1885: The headline speaks of 'almond-eyed, leper-infested, dirty Chinamen.'

We don't want to end on such a sad note. That's why here's a more beautiful view:

We have even more landscape pictures!

We'll send them to you soon, and then you'll see even more of the beautiful landscape around Queenstown.

Little tip:

The rainy days we encountered here initially had something extremely positive about them. Who can guess what it is?

See you soon :)

HanNZette.