Remarkable Scenic Tours has been running small-group day trips out of Queenstown since 2015, and the Arrowtown & Wānaka Highlights Tour is one of two set small-group itineraries the family-owned operator runs, alongside a Milford Sound day tour.
Qualmark Silver accredited and rated 4.9 out of 5 from 634 reviews, it departs central Queenstown at 10am daily in a small European-style van with a local guide, returning by around 4:20pm. The day takes in three stops: the preserved gold-rush streets of Arrowtown, a drink at the historic Cardrona Hotel on the Crown Range, and free time on the Wānaka lakefront, with New Zealand’s highest sealed road in between.
Arrowtown’s gold rush streets
Arrowtown is around 20 minutes from Queenstown, and its Buckingham Street is lined with more than 60 original gold-rush buildings, many dating to the 1860s. Gold was discovered in the Arrow River in 1862, and by the end of that year more than 1,500 miners had set up camp along its banks; the settlement’s population later peaked at around 7,000.
The tour builds in around one hour of free time to walk the tree-lined avenue and browse the galleries, cafés and heritage shopfronts that now occupy the old stone and timber buildings. A short walk away, the preserved stone huts of the Arrowtown Chinese Settlement, home to the Chinese miners who arrived later in the rush and for some years mined around 30 per cent of the district’s gold, are worth the detour if your free hour allows.
Over the Crown Range to the Cardrona Hotel
From Arrowtown, the road climbs through a series of switchbacks to the Crown Range Summit, New Zealand’s highest sealed road, where the guide pulls over at a lookout with views back across the Wakatipu Basin. Descending the other side into the Cardrona Valley, the tour stops at the Cardrona Hotel, built in 1863 and one of only two buildings remaining from the original gold-rush township.
Its cream-and-maroon weatherboard façade is said to be one of the most photographed in the country, and the complimentary drink included in the tour price — a local beer or a non-alcoholic ginger beer — is poured at the same bar a former owner once used to ration miners to one beer if they were crossing the Crown Range, or two if they were headed on to Wānaka.
Free time on the Wānaka lakefront
From Cardrona, it’s a short drive further to Wānaka, where the tour allows roughly another hour of free time — enough to walk the lakefront, browse the shops or stop for the lunch that isn’t included in the tour price. Most visitors make a point of walking out to see the Wānaka Tree, a lone willow growing in the shallows of Lake Wānaka that has become one of the country’s most photographed trees, its reflection a familiar sight on travel feeds and postcards alike. With the Southern Alps behind it and the lake stretching out in front, it makes a fitting final stop on a day that began among gold-rush shopfronts and alpine switchbacks.
The tour runs daily, costs NZ$199 per adult and NZ$120 for children aged 6 to 16 (children under six aren’t accommodated), and includes transport, the guide, the Cardrona Hotel drink and a printed map of the operator’s recommended eateries and shops — though not lunch. Guests are advised to dress in layers, since the Crown Range can be cool even in summer, and to bring comfortable shoes for the short walks involved. Pick-up and drop-off are both from a single central Queenstown meeting point outside Marmolada Cafe at 43 Shotover Street; there’s no hotel pick-up option, which is worth flagging to clients booking accommodation further out of town.
