queenstown

285 km north-west of Dunedin and 187 km north of Invercargill, Queenstown sits halfway along Lake Wakatipu. William Rees had run sheep in the area for just two years when gold was discovered on the Shotover River in November 1862. A town sprang to life; the site of Rees’s old homestead, the Camp, is in the centre of Queenstown. After gold fever waned, the town declined. Through the first half of the 20th century it had fewer than 1,000 people, with a trickle of summer holidaymakers. In 1981 Queenstown’s resident population was still less than 3,500. Since then, tourist numbers increased rapidly – in winter as well as summer. The merchant Bendix Hallenstein gave the Queenstown peninsula to the town in 1866–67. Since then it has been the site of public gardens, with a number of sport facilities.