Queentown Quests - Part I
© Kath Hobson
Well by the time you all read this I will be racing my way around the United States on my very hectic three week sojourn. I am also making a quick two day trip into Canada to see Toronto and Niagara Falls. For those of you that may be interested, I am going to America specifically to meet a bunch of wonderful friends that I have made through the internet. These are all email pals that I have been corresponding with for over three years now. We have all been counting how many "sleeps" it is to go and as you can imagine the anticipation of finally getting to meet these wonderful friends in person almost out weights the excitement of travelling half way around the world to do so. I will be doing quite a bit of sight seeing as well and have a VERY heavy schedule mapped out for my three weeks. Anyhow enough of that and onto the really serious stuff! LOL
This month I thought we would explore the sights of Queenstown.
Queenstown is a tourist resort, nestled on the banks of Lake Wakatipu. It lies approximately 160 kilometers or 100 miles north-west of Dunedin. Directly across Lake Wakatipu lies the Remarkables, a 2286 meter or 7500 foot mountain range. Coronet Peak, which is one of New Zealand's finest ski resorts lies to the north of the city. Queenstown is an absolute hub of tourist activity and there are a large number of wonderful experiences to be had within the area.
Maoris first came to this area via the valley systems of Southland and Otago in search of food, fiber and stone resources. They hunted the large, flightless moa and they discovered sources of pounamu (greenstone) at the head of Lake Wakatipu. Permanent settlement was generally limited to seasonal occupation although a few groups stayed two or three years before returning to the coast.
The Gardens Peninsula was the site of a Maori Pa occupied by the people of the Katimamoe tribe. A Maori legend tells of the first woman to swim across Lake Wakatipu (a distance of some 3km or almost 2 miles). Hakitekura, daughter of Tuwiriroa, a Katimamoe chief, asked for a kaueti (firestick) and a dry bunch of raupo. She bound them tightly in flax to keep them dry. Early the next morning, determined to out-swim all the girls in the village, she set out across the Lake. Hakitekura navigated by keeping an eye on Cecil and Walter Peaks whose tops, touched by dawn's first light, "twinkled and winked" at her; hence their name Kakamu-a-Hakitekura (the twinklings seen by Hakitekura). She landed on Refuge Point (Te Ahi-a-Hakitekura) and lit a fire, which is why, so the legend says, the rocks there are black to this day.
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