Queenstown

Everything in Queenstown radiates from the waterfront. Steamer Wharf is where the TSS Earnslaw has tied up since her maiden voyage in October 1912 — the "Lady of the Lake", still hand-fired with coal and the last commercial passenger steamship of her kind in the southern hemisphere. The 45-minute crossing to Walter Peak High Country Farm is the classic way to see the lake, and the audio guide to the ship fills in the engine-room story while you watch the stokers work. Back on shore, the Gardens are a ten-minute stroll around the bay.

The Skyline Gondola climbs the flank of Ben Lomond straight out of the town centre to a deck above Bob's Peak, with the whole lake, the Remarkables and Coronet Peak laid out in one view. Most visitors ride the Skyline Luge at the top; the fitter ones keep walking, because the summit station is also the trailhead for the Ben Lomond Track, a full-day climb to one of the best panoramas in the South Island. The Tiki Trail zigzags up through the pines if you would rather earn the view on foot.

Queenstown's reputation for adrenaline started on a historic suspension bridge over the Kawarau River. The AJ Hackett Kawarau Bungy Centre has run the world's first commercial bungy here since 1988 — a 43-metre plunge, with the option of a dip in the river. The Shotover Jet does for water what the bridge does for air, spinning jet boats within arm's reach of the canyon walls of the Shotover River, while the Nevis Bungy, Swing & Catapult takes the whole idea up a notch over a far deeper gorge. The audio guides here are as much about the gold-rush rivers as the rides.

Twenty minutes east, Arrowtown is the Otago gold rush preserved in miniature. Jack Tewa found gold in the Arrow River in August 1862, and within months 800 miners were camped here; at its peak the district counted more than 7,000 people. The Historic Arrowtown Chinese Settlement on Bush Creek keeps the restored huts and Ah Lum's store of the Chinese miners who arrived in the 1870s to rework the abandoned claims — a quietly moving place, and one the audio guide handles with care. The Lakes District Museum & Gallery on the main street tells the wider story, and in April the avenue of old trees turns the whole town gold again.

The Kawarau Gorge road out of Queenstown runs through Gibbston, the "valley of the vines" and the gateway to Central Otago, the world's southernmost — and New Zealand's fastest-growing — wine region. Gibbston Valley Winery & Restaurant has a cellar cut into the schist hillside, Chard Farm sits at the end of a famously narrow cliff road, and Amisfield Restaurant & Cellar Door near Lake Hayes is the region's destination lunch. Pinot noir is the story, and the audio guides explain why this cold, dry, high-altitude valley makes it so well.

The road along the lake's western shore to Glenorchy is forty-five minutes of the best lake scenery in the country, ending at a red wharf shed and the Dart River valley that stood in for Isengard and Lothlórien. Over the Crown Range, Lake Wānaka is Queenstown's quieter sibling, with its much-photographed lone willow in the water. And Milford Sound / Piopiotahi in Fiordland National Park is the big one — a long day by coach or a short flight, with Mitre Peak rising 1,692 metres straight out of the sea. Load the audio guides before you leave; the fiord has no mobile signal.

The town centre is compact and walkable, and the gondola, wharf and Gardens are all within fifteen minutes of each other on foot. A car — or a tour coach — is needed for the gorge, the vineyards, Arrowtown and anything further. Queenstown works in every season: summer runs to about 30 °C and long evenings on the lake; autumn brings Arrowtown's colours; from late June the four ski fields — Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona and Treble Cone — turn it into New Zealand's winter resort, with night skiing under floodlights at Coronet Peak.