Queenstown Walkabout

Although Queenstown wasn’t on our original itinerary, once here, there were tons of things to do. But first, find an ATM!  Queenstown is a college / tourist or tourist / college town depending on who you talk to. We thought it was more the latter, a tourist / college town with quite few backpackers, trampers, tour buses, hitchhikers (yes, alive and well in NZ), and an occasional senior tourist (no not Collette).

Fortunately, our bach (cool, huh. Starting to talk like a Kiwi) was close to town so we could walk to most of what we wanted to see.  Beautiful day with clear skies, light breeze and tons of folks out by the lake just enjoying the day.

Not sure what a “Fergburger” really is but it was popular!

We walked down the major street in town making our way to the lake. We stopped long enough to take a few pics of the church; moseyed on to something called, “The Justice Trees”. Just a couple of big trees really, located in front of the courthouse but they have an interesting story.

The trees, giant Sequoias, were planted in 1877 from seedlings raised by Lake County Clerk Philip Boult. Seems back in those days they wanted people to have some shade while they waited to be prosecuted. No they didn’t hang people from these trees like they did in England but I guess if there was a backlog…..

Anyway, the cool thing about this tree is that a few short years later, Mr. Boult got to try it out. You see he was tried and convicted in 1885 of embezzlement, so while waiting for his 5-year sentence to be decided, he rested under his trees. Nice to plan ahead.

Just a couple of ways to spend your tourist dollars!