A Week in Queenstown During the Winter

Our family spent a week in Queenstown during the winter and it was unforgettable. Even though we are all skiers, we prefer fair weather skiing.  As a rule, we avoid blizzards, winds and white-outs!  That’s not much fun in our book. However,  one of the great things about Queenstown is the masses of activities to-do on a non-mountain day.  Our NZski Superpasses allowed us to have a break from skiing to sample Queenstown’s other delights. I suppose that also applies on a fine day when you just fancy a day of less strenuous activity too.

We did not have a hire car as our Queenstown ski package included ski buses to The Remarkables and Coronet Peak, so we were looking for an activity that included hotel pick up. We had a lie-in, wandered downtown, grabbed a great coffee and sat down to look through the many brochures and guide books we had collected to give us some inspiration. As a family with teenagers, we chose to go on a 4WD tour that afternoon. The Queenstown Lord of the Rings tour with Nomad Safaris appealed to us.  It had LOTR locations for Dad, (a bit of a geek), river crossings for our son and gold panning for our daughter. My mum was really relaxed about all of it and just wanted to look at the gorgeous scenery. It was perfect!

The Remarkables were visible in all their glory and the lake was serene and this stunning blue. Therefore, we took heaps of photos and had a wonderful time looking through them when we got home.   The snow on the mountains just added the icing on the cake! We would thoroughly recommend planning extra days on top of your skiing to really make the most of your Queenstown winter holiday to have a go at a couple of the many things this perfect little town nestled in the Southern Lakes has to offer.

Tags: Insider Queenstown