Destination Queenstown
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Under the stars at the McIntosh Hut
A 5-to-9 adventure. We sweated up the last few metres and reached Long Gully Saddle, where we passed a sign telling us it was only another 30 minutes to our destination for the night. My calves burned, my bag felt heavy, the path felt steeper than any previous bit of the trail, and I kept…
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The legend of Mrs H
“Enjoy yourself, that’s my advice.” Helen Hillary settles into her Lazyboy chair with her beloved Ragdoll cat Mandy on her lap. I’m visiting her at her home in Frankton, a suburb of Queenstown. She promises to tell “some higglety pigglety stories from my life at the top of the lake”. But where to start when…
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Young guns
A walk around a lake. A big lake. All the way around. It’s late summer. The days are long and the sun still has heat. My car whines with a high-pitched wheeze as it slaloms up the Coronet Peak ski field access road. I’m not on my way to an adventure. I’m on my way…
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Harder than ice
The rise, fall and resurrection of the Bush Creek Rink. Cold fingers pull laces on stiff leather – breath hanging in the air, the waft of woodsmoke, the cackle of childish laughter. I flip my collar and sink into the wool of my jersey. This isn’t the time or place for modern fabrics. Grabbing my…
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Stuffed animals
The 1964 guide to the everywhere-taxidermy of the South Island. Rural Aotearoa and taxidermy go together like an all-you-can eat sausage sizzle and tomato sauce. There’s a lot of it, and both involve getting stuffed. However you feel about taxidermy, it’s an impressive craft, one which involves fitting the clean and treated skin of an…
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Freezing for fun
The cold never bothered me anyway. “Take off your clothes,” the Italian woman says. She’s speaking in English, into a loudspeaker. The crowd lining the poolside and balcony go quiet. “Get into the water.” Eight of us shuffle to the edge of the pool. There is one ladder for two lanes. The competitor in lane…
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The Shadow
A classic gets a second life. That slow sway, rocked like a baby in a cradle. Sloshing from side to side in the wind, you’d bump shoulders with a stranger, a friend, or the one you hoped to sway into the night with. You’d huddle for warmth; you’d share a nip, a drag, a puff…
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If it works, change it
For nearly a decade, LUMA lit up Queenstown for the love of it. It’s always about the weather, rain and wind being unwanted, no matter what the event. And in the week leading up to LUMA 2024, it’s uncannily warm. Nor’west, the forecast is mixed. But the transformation of the Queenstown Gardens continues regardless. From…
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Album review: Midnight Hours By Killergrams
An alt-country/rock band based in Arrowtown, Killergrams is singer-songwriter Tom Maxwell, singer and bassist Sam Maxwell, as well as Nick Lynch on piano and Reuben Pearce on drums. More a reintroduction than a release, Midnight Hours has an interesting backstory. A change in distribution companies saw the original album, their 2019 debut, taken off streaming…