Sunday 9 August 2026
Queenstown Walks
Last week I was in Queenstown for a work event — pretty full-on social activities from Wednesday night to Friday, but then I stayed in Queenstown for the weekend and had that time to myself. So I treated myself to a couple of big walks.
On Saturday I took the bus to Arrowtown, walked over Big Hill to Macetown and then back to Arrowtown along the 4WD track. I’ve been to Macetown before when we did the Motatapu Track a few years ago; that time, we were walking from Wanaka to Arrowtown over a few days, and planned to camp at Macetown, but the sandflies were so bad we walked through it and then all the way out to Arrowtown.
The walk over Big Hill, which I’d never done before, was spectacular. The clear winter’s day gave great views of the surrounding mountains. There was a bit of snow and ice on the path but not enough to cause problems for my regular hiking boots. On the way down from Big Hill to the river I spotted a lot of feral goats!
I took a bit of time to explore Macetown itself; it’s a deserted former gold-mining town, and there are a few historic old huts and other points of interest, but not much. Pretty though. This time I didn’t expect any problems with sandflies since it’s winter, but I did still see a couple at the campsite there, which is where I turned back. The walk out was pretty fast, only about 2.5 hours since I was traveling light. The whole walk took about 8.5 hours including a half hour break for lunch. It was probably about 25km.
On Sunday there was a lot of low cloud in the hills so I stuck to the lakefront. I took the bus to Jack’s Point, a new housing development in the foothills of the Remarkables mountain range, and walked back to Queenstown, basically the entire length of the Queenstown Trail. It’s a dual-use trail so I saw quite a few mountain bikers but not enough to be annoying. Naturally out at Jack’s Point it’s very quiet and gets gradually busier as you get closer to town. It was less spectacular than Big Hill, but I still got some good views of the lake and surrounding hills, and Jack’s Point and Kelvin Point are delightful places for walking that I’d never been to before. This trip took about six hours including a half-hour lunch stop at the Frankton Arms. This was probably about 28km because I accidentally got off the bus a couple of km before the track start. It was a fast walk because the track is mostly flat and very well formed, more like a road most of the way. Oddly enough the Queenstown Trail is described as taking 4-5 hours to bike … I would have expected biking to be at least twice as fast as walking. “shrug”
These walks were amazing fun and very good for my mental health — many hours just walking and thinking and some praying.
