Sheep Station

No transportation by motor coach today. Instead, on this bright, beautiful, blue-sky day, we met at the hotel boat dock to take a water taxi to the central business district of Queenstown.

We did not stay long, but moved to a different pier from the water taxi dock and boarded yet another motor catamaran for a trip across Lake Wakatipu. Views of the surrounding mountains were stunning.

Our destination was the Mt. Nicholas Sheep Station — a 100,000 acre ranch where 29,000 Marino sheep, a herd of Herford cattle, and an assortment of pigs and chickens are raised essentially by one family. Five family members and employees, along with about 30 very smart dogs, run everything.

Everything, that is, except the tourist operation, which is contracted to a company that brings its laborers and its customers in and out by boat each day. Nevertheless, our guide was a young New Zealand woman who had grown up on a farm and was both knowledgeable and comfortable around animals. It was clear that she loved her job.

She gave us an introductory talk in the sheering barn, explaining how teams of expert sheerers are brought in each spring and how they do their work. The sheerers have a global operation, moving from New Zealand from Australia, and then working in England and Scotland when it is winter here.

We also had opportunity to feel the raw wool and learn about its marketing and processing. Then we were introduced to a couple of semi-retired dogs who gave us a brief demonstration of their herding abilities. Some of the sheep were eager to eat from the hands of tourists.

After the demo, we went to another barn where we were served an excellent lunch of various meat pies and trimmings. There was time to linger along the lake shore until the boat returned to collect us, bringing the next group of visitors at the same time — a well-run operation.

After docking back at Queenstown, our tour director gave us an orientation tour. The business district is quite small, only a few square blocks. It consists primarily of booking agencies selling tourists opportunities for jet-boat rides, parasailing, sky diving, hang gliding, bungy jumping, and a long catalog of other “adventure sports.”

These are interspersed with souvenir shops, bars, restaurants, and clothing stores selling the finished products of the same Marino wool we saw on the hoof just a bit ago. Everything here is on the pricey side, and it is clear that one could spend a great deal of money here in a very short Queenstown vacation. No wonder there are so many expensive homes on the surrounding hillsides!

After our orientation walk, we had free time in Queenstown. We spent the bulk of it walking through the large, public botanical garden — one of the few free things available here. Then we inspected several of the shops, including one that referenced a certain Mary who was reported to have had a little lamb....

An excellent dinner was served to us at a restaurant called “The Fat Lamb.” Just down the street was another, called “The Fat Badger.” In Te Anau, some in the group had eaten in a place called “The Fat Duck.” Several of us remarked that all of the good food included in this trip will probably turn us into “The Fat Tourists.”

We returned to the hotel by water taxi, getting a good look at Queenstown’s iconic coal-fired steamship, which still takes excursions across the lake several times a day — for a price, of course.