After a leisurely start to our morning we drove northeast to Arrowtown, a small historic mining town nestled into the mountains. We wandered the shops and ate a lovely brunch at The Chop Shop. The main reason I took us to Arrowtown, though, was to play 9 holes at the Arrowtown Golf Club. New Zealand has a reputation for some spectacular courses and I wanted to play at least one while we were here.
I chose a more-budget friendly public course as I didn’t want to play 18 holes and I’m still healing from an ankle injury so my golf game is in rough shape. The Arrowtown course has some great bones: mountain views, rolling hills, and cool rock features abound. Unfortunately I caught the course in very rough shape. Lots of construction and grass under repair led to a less-than-stellar experience.
I still enjoyed my walk, though. The drive off of the 9th hole was the highlight, a risk-reward hole where you could lay up short of the water or try to carry the series of rock outcroppings to the right.
We drove back to Queenstown that afternoon and decided to take the gondola up to the viewpoint above town. We enjoyed a beer from Altitude brewing and took in the views.
After riding down we visited The Bunker for a cocktail and then turned in early. We have an early wake-up again, hoping to take our re-scheduled sightseeing flight to the Milford Sound.