{"id":78,"date":"2012-10-27T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T04:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/?p=78"},"modified":"2012-10-27T17:42:25","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T07:42:25","slug":"queenstown-new-zealand-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/2012\/10\/queenstown-new-zealand-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Queenstown, New Zealand notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every aspect of Queenstown<\/a>, a resort town on the South Island of New Zealand, is dominated by tourism. (This is not a bad thing, merely an observation.) This is obvious when it comes to the local economy: at a conservative guess, one business in two is a restaurant, pub, hotel, hostel, car rental agency, or otherwise traveller-focused. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also noticeable in the demographics. The workers I encountered were almost uniformly from out of town \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Vancouver, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic, for example; presumably on working holidays \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and even the New Zealanders were from elsewhere in the country.<\/p>\n

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The nearby towns of Wanaka<\/a> and Cromwell<\/a> don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem quite so touristy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c their businesses seem more geared towards serving locals. (That said, that ever-reliable oracle Wikipedia describes Wanaka as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153resort town\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and says tourism is on the rise.)<\/p>\n

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Agriculture is alive and well. There are a fair few sheep in the area, the odd herd of cattle, and, especially around Cromwell and Wanaka, plenty of vineyards.<\/p>\n

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Living in the little settlement of Glenorchy<\/a>, about an hour away from Queenstown, appears to be a lifestyle choice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and \u00c2\u00a0judging by the number of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For Sale\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signs I saw on the buildings there, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a lifestyle that appeals to everyone.<\/p>\n

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The ubiquitous souvenirs are plush animals from two brands \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Kiwi & Friends and Tiny Travellers. Plush sheep are most common, but there are kiwis as well.<\/p>\n

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The food was excellent, both at the touristy (I recommend a restaurant named Fishbone in Queenstown \u00e2\u20ac\u201c open for dinners only; lives up to the hype; try the calamari as a starter and the battered\/crumbed fish & chips for a main) and the non-touristy (I had a delicious bacon & egg bagel at a Glenorchy cafe) establishments.<\/p>\n

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Last but not <\/em>least, the landscape is beautiful \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this could be the Switzerland of the South Pacific. In fact, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the area\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main draw. A picture is worth a thousand words:<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every aspect of Queenstown, a resort town on the South Island of New Zealand, is dominated by tourism. (This is not a bad thing, merely an observation.) This is obvious when it comes to the local economy: at a conservative … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.petersahui.com\/optimist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}