Glenorchy and Arrowtown: Queenstown’s two best day trips

Glenorchy: the road and the river

• The Glenorchy Road itself: 45 minutes of lake-edge corners regularly called one of the world’s great drives. Stop at Bennetts Bluff lookout; everyone does, correctly.
• The red shed: Glenorchy’s little wharf shed is the most photographed farm building in the country. The village behind it holds a pub, a cafe and magnificent stillness.
• Dart River by jet boat or funyak: the braided glacial river runs into Mount Aspiring National Park past scenery Peter Jackson used for Isengard; the jet-and-inflatable-canoe combo is the full day that guests rank with Milford.
• Paradise: the settlement beyond Glenorchy is a genuine place name, a gravel road, and the trailheads for the Routeburn. Walking the Routeburn’s first hours as a day trip is the free version of a Great Walk.
• Kinloch: the quiet lodge side of the lake head, for lunch with the 1868 slow-travel feel intact.

Arrowtown: the gold rush, kept

• Buckingham Street: miners’ cottages, a working post office since 1863, and small shops that resist the resort gravity one valley over.
• The Chinese settlement: restored huts of the Chinese miners who worked the Arrow from 1868, told plainly by DOC. Quietly the most affecting few minutes in the district.
• The Arrow River: pan for gold flakes where fortunes actually surfaced, or bike the river trail down through vineyards to the Kawarau bungy bridge: our cycle trails guide covers the loop.
• Autumn, specifically: in April the sycamores and poplars turn the village photogenic to the point of parody, with a festival to match: see April’s guide.
• Lakes District Museum: the compact gold-rush museum consistently rated among the country’s best small museums.

The day, timed

1. 8am: Arrowtown, coffee on Buckingham Street before the buses, the Chinese settlement while it is quiet.
2. 10am: the river trail by bike down through the vineyards to the Kawarau bungy bridge, or the museum if the weather is against it.
3. 1pm: back through Queenstown and up the lake road, with Bennetts Bluff lookout at the hour the light swings west.
4. 3pm: Glenorchy, the red shed, the walk at the head of the lake or the Dart jet if it was booked. Dinner back in Queenstown by seven.

Arrowtown in the morning and Glenorchy in the afternoon beats both crowds and both lights. In April, swap the order and give Arrowtown the golden hour.

The road up the lake

The Glenorchy road is 45 minutes of sealed lakeside from Queenstown, with Bennetts Bluff lookout at the halfway point and the Remarkables receding behind. Beyond Glenorchy the road to Paradise turns to gravel with fords that rise after rain, and rental agreements mostly stop at the seal. Arrowtown is the opposite errand: twenty minutes on the highway from Queenstown, with the Crown Range road climbing straight out of it towards Wanaka. Both are half-day drives from the same bed, and both are better before ten and after three.