Arrowtown

Arrowtown had been recommended to us by so many people that we thought we'd better make the effort and have a look!

We caught a local bus out there and found a delightful (but heavily tourist focused) little town. They had a library which was open in the morning. It was a small library on the corner of the main street (and it featured on a postcard of the achitecture of the town.)

They had a trolley of ex-library books for sale on the front verandah (I picked up a Robert Crais pb for 50c). The trolley was being well and truly picked over by tourists, such as myself, looking for bargain holiday reads.

We then strolled along the main street and treated ourselves to a superb hot chocolate from Patagonia cafe (Arrowtown branch). The hot chocolate is in a huge soup tureen (those big black ones) and when you order a hot choc they ladle it into the mug, add a home made shortbread to the saucer (or the lid of the takeaway container), and voila. It's nice to see the takeawayers getting the same saucer treats as the drink-ins.

Anyhoo as well as a Patagonia cafe, and a Remarkable Sweets shop and a very nice jewellery store, and several galleries (art, photography, craft) and many tourist shops, there is also a chinese museum as Arrowtown was home to many Chinese during the gold rush.

After lunch in one of the many cafe's it was back to Queenstown where we'd planned a relaxing afternoon cruise on the lake.

Dinner was fish n chips (fush n chups) from the kiosk near the Novotel which we ate looking out at the sunset over the lake.

A great day.