Strung along the creek, near the site of Arrowtown's first gold find, is NZ’s best example of an early Chinese settlement. Interpretive signs explain the lives of Chinese miners during and after the gold rush (the last resident died in 1932), while restored huts and the only remaining Chinese store in the southern goldfields make the story more tangible. Subjected to significant racism, the Chinese often had little choice but to rework old tailings rather than seek new claims.
Arrowtown Chinese Settlement
Queenstown & Wanaka
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
10.98 MILES
Shaped like a cartoon lightning bolt, Lake Wakatipu is NZ's third-largest lake. It reaches a depth of 372m, meaning the lake bed actually sits below sea…
10.56 MILES
Enter past the fence of bras (Bra-drona!) and you'll find the beautiful cellar door of this fledgling single-malt distillery inside a building made of…
10.72 MILES
Set on its own tongue of land framing Queenstown Bay, this pretty park is the perfect city escape right within the city. Laid out in 1876, it features an…
10.55 MILES
Hop aboard for fantastic views as the gondola squeezes through pine forest to its grandstand location 400m above Queenstown. At the top there's the…
21.71 MILES
Wānaka Station Park is a piece of Wānaka that existed before Wānaka did. This remnant of the sheep station that once covered the entire south side of the…
20.09 MILES
When the Clyde Dam was completed in 1992 it flooded Cromwell's historic town centre – 280 homes, six farms and 17 orchards. Many historic buildings were…
National Transport & Toy Museum
25.06 MILES
Mixing Smurfs with Studebakers and skidoos (and an authentic MiG jet fighter flown by the Polish Air Force), this completely eclectic and absorbing…
6.66 MILES
The area's oldest commercial winery (established in the early 1980s) offers tours of the winery ($35) and NZ's largest wine cave ($20). It also has a…
Nearby Queenstown & Wanaka attractions
1. Lakes District Museum & Gallery
0.24 MILES
Exhibits cover the gold-rush era and the early days of Chinese settlement around Arrowtown. Kids are kept engaged by the likes of an 'Odd One Out' game…
2. St Patrick's Catholic Church
0.3 MILES
Apart from its impressive Star of David–shaped rose window, this 1874 stone Gothic Revival church, built from local schist rock, wouldn't be worth noting…
0.41 MILES
With gold rushes came lawlessness. Arrowtown's prisoners were originally manacled to logs, but in 1876 this schist jail, now surrounded by homes, was…
5.73 MILES
The most picturesque of the Gibbston wineries, Chard Farm's rustic cellar door is reached by a precipitous 2km road overlooking the Kawarau Bridge Bungy…
6.66 MILES
The area's oldest commercial winery (established in the early 1980s) offers tours of the winery ($35) and NZ's largest wine cave ($20). It also has a…
7.74 MILES
Covering much of the Pisa Range, this conservation reserve has several walking trails through the tussock grass. To get the full show, the 19km tramp to…
8.3 MILES
Peregrine by name, peregrine by design…the award-winning construction of the cellar door, shaped a bit like a falcon's wing in flight, looks particularly…
8.6 MILES
Producers of one of the region's most acclaimed pinot noirs; its cellar door is in the front yard of the rustic Gibbston Tavern.