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Queenstown is the New Zealand destination for international visitors. Its natural beauty changes with the seasons, the lake gleans in the summer sun, and snow clad mountains tower above the township in winter. Queenstown is a great place to visit all year round. Nestled in beside the mysterious Lake Wakatipu, in the Southern Lakes district of New Zealand, Queenstown is a cosmopolitan haven, offering limitless tours, southern wine and cuisine, and breathtaking alpine scenery.
Queenstown hosts an array of attractions that caters to both leisure and adventure seekers. Queenstown has numerous tours aimed at ensuring the most exciting holiday in one of the world's most beautiful places. In fact, there are so many possibilities to spend the holiday time that combinations are one the visitor's favorite options.
Canyon & Wine Tour, featuring the unique and mysterious landscape of Skippers Canyon and the delicious and passionately produced wines of Gibbston Valley is only one highlight to choose from.
Skippers Canyon's heritage is the goldrush. Gold was discovered in the Shotover River in mid-November 1862 by Thomas Arthur and Harry Redfern. They secured gold worth about $8'000.
With such high rewards at stake it is not hard to believe that swarms of miners literally raced to the area. Accurate figures though about how much gold was found cannot be provided as no official record was kept. An estimation listed around 5'000 miners worked in this region. Close behind the diggers came those who earned their money from providing services for the miners. Packers, storekeepers, hotel proprietors, blacksmiths, butchers and bakers established settlements in what are now deserted areas.
A French immigrant gold miner, Jean Desire Feraud, could not find his luck by digging for Gold but soon started planting vines and embarking upon small-scale commercial wine production. Late in the 19th century, the New Zealand government hired a winemaker to survey the country. He singled out Central Otago as a region of utmost potential.
Central Otago is the Southern-most grape-growing region in the world located at latitude 45º south (similar to both Oregon’s Willamette Valley, U.S.A., and the Northern Rhone Valley in France). The region’s vineyards are located east of the resort town of Queenstown and include the small towns of Wanaka, Cromwell and Alexandra. Central Otago is well known as the foremost producer of New Zealand’s stonefruit, primarily cherries and apricots.
Canyon & Wine tour is only one of the many Queenstown tours that offer a combination, but it is unique in its kind. While other tours in Queenstown - wine tours as well as other adventure tours alike - target the mass market, our Canyon & Wine tour focuses on smaller groups which makes this service a VIP Queenstown attraction.
