Arrowtown is a unique living historical village some 15minutes out of Queenstown in Central Otago.

It has three main attractions they being

The well preserved buildings from the gold rush era (why we went)

The golf courses

Autumn colours.

The restored cottages especially are well worth a visit but not a purchase. We looked into the window of the local Real Estate agent only o see a two bedroom cottage with excellent views and an established old English garden which had just been sold for $1.5m.

The local Post & Telegraph Office is in itself unique in two ways.

Firstly in still being a Telegraph Office and secondly despite being decommissioned by NZ Post it is still operated by the local Historical Society as a fully functioning franchise and a busy one as tourists seek to post back souveniors as their luggage is full.

Our trip out was along the banks of Lake Hayes again displaying the rugged mountain scenery so typical of the South Island as well as the numerous new buid estates as the Queenstown population booms.

Established in 1862 during the Otago gold rush Arrowtown was the base for prospectors along the Arrow River which in places is only metres away from streets.

While current permanent population hover's above the 2200 mark the growth in tourism has been unabated since the 1970's with thousands daily coming to view not only the cottages but the restored shops which carry a wide variety of New Zealand designed and if one is lucky New Zealand made clothing. A feature of the clothing lines is the combination of around 40% possum fur,55% merino wool and elastics making for very soft flexible items. Bikers often are attracted to the possum gloves that retail for around $54.95.

The streetscape of Buckingham St (the Main St) is a mixture of stone and timber with stonw building usually being older due to their ability to suvive fires from the oen fireplaces that were common.

Gold panning is possible and a glint of gold may await your efforts as the Arrow River was the source of some of the world's greatest gold discoveries.

We managed a viit to Remarkable Sweet shop for a free sample of their locally produced fudge,Rocky roads and nought. A six pack of sample size accompanied us on the return journey.

Dirty motorcycles are not the best so i left the others and sought out the local Repco and was not thrilled at the local high prices for the ssame cheap products in Australia however on special for $7.99 was a 500ml of CRC car & bike wash.

I had tried the newly opened K Mart but the lack of service apart from self service would not have them enjoying me as a customer. Service was so slack only ONE staff member was left to cover all store sales both manually and self service and she would not leave the self service area.

A visit to the local supermarket Pack n Save saw dramatic price reductions when one scanned a membership card such as bread at $1.39 a loaf became 89cc for members. Soft drink of 1.25litres was available for 99c where as locally produced dairy products such as butter etc is $5.90 for 500g and milk 2l sells for $4.45 as Fonterra has control of 95% of New Zealand supply. Ice creams range from $7.50 for 2l of standard ice cream while speciality flavours may be around $12.00 for 400ml a vast difference to my previous visit where milkshakes were $1 EACH.

Still one takes the good (scenery) with the bad (food & fuel prices) as we prepare to move up the West coast in search of living glaciers.