Queenstown Gardens

The gardens take up the whole peninsula that pushes out into Queenstown Bay, a ten-minute walk from the town centre along the waterfront. They are the best free thing to do in Queenstown, and the thing to do when the weather has cancelled everything you booked.

The loop track runs right around the outside with water on both sides — the bay and the town on one, the open lake and the Remarkables on the other. It is flat, wide and pram and wheelchair friendly, and a slow circuit takes about half an hour.

The trees

The gardens were opened in 1867, the year after Queenstown's first mayor and a local nurseryman planted two English oaks to mark the borough's incorporation. Those oaks are still there. So are heritage firs, a monkey puzzle and a Wellingtonia, and the Douglas firs that make up most of the shelter belt around the outside — which is why the middle of the gardens is calm when the lake is not.

The formal rose garden was put in during the 1960s and holds around 850 bushes. Best in December and January.

What is here

• Disc golf — the first permanently marked course in New Zealand, and free to play if you have discs.
• Queenstown Ice Arena — public skating and ice hockey, and a good rainy-day option.
• Tennis courts, lawn bowls, a skate park and a children's playground.
• The band rotunda at the Park Street entrance, rebuilt in 1999.
• A memorial to Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition, put up in 1913, and one to William Gilbert Rees from 1978.
• A small beach on the bay side where people swim in summer. The water is cold in any month.

Parkrun uses the gardens on Saturday mornings, and LUMA, the light festival, fills them over a few nights each winter.

Practical

Walk in from the waterfront rather than driving — parking at the Park Street end is limited and metered, and the walk along the bay is part of the point. There are toilets near the main entrance. Dogs are allowed on a lead in most of the gardens.

Nearby

Earnslaw Park and the Saturday market are back along the waterfront, and Queenstown Hill is the short climb if you want the view from above.