Arrowtown

Why it matters

Arrowtown is here because of the river beside it. In 1862, by the Lakes District Museum’s account, Jack Tewa found gold in the Arrow River, and his find was not made public; the town’s business association remembers him as a shearer. Destination Queenstown, the region’s tourism body, describes thousands of miners from around the world making for the Arrow that same year. It was not an easy place to be: the museum records floods in 1863 that devastated Arrowtown and the Shotover with great loss of life.

The town’s other story is quieter, and it is the one that makes a visit here unusual. From 1866, the museum says, Chinese miners began working the Whakatipu goldfields. DOC counts 3,564 Chinese in Otago by the 1874 census, most of them on the goldfields, and many from the Guangzhou delta, which was going through hard times. Families paid for sons and brothers to go and send money home. Often facing harassment and discrimination, DOC says, they lived at the edges of European settlements, close to their claims. At Arrowtown they lived on Bush Creek, and by 1885 the settlement had about ten huts, a large social hall and at least two stores.

It is unlikely any women ever lived there, though about 70 per cent of the men were married. In the early years many went home after saving around £100, which DOC suggests may have equalled twenty years’ wages in China. By 1900 most of those still here were the men for whom the goldfields had not paid, and they lived out their lives in New Zealand. The settlement was excavated in December 1983, five huts were rebuilt and Ah Lum’s store was conserved. Destination Queenstown notes that Arrowtown is recognised as Tohu Whenua, one of the places that have shaped New Zealand.

What it's like

Buckingham Street is the heart of it: a main street of old miners’ cottages, small shops, galleries and what Destination Queenstown calls a sophisticated food scene. There is an independent cinema with a fire, an old-fashioned sweet shop and, according to the Queenstown Trail, bakeries and pubs enough for anyone arriving hungry by bike. The Lakes District Museum is on the main street too, at number 49, and doubles as the town’s information centre, so it is a sensible first stop.

At the top end of the street, DOC says, Buckingham Street swings downhill to a picnic area where Bush Creek meets the Arrow. Ah Lum’s restored store stands on a terrace to the left, and the Chinese Settlement is tucked in behind on the flats, among willows, poplars and hawthorns. Panels in English and Chinese tell the story as you go. The main path, an old dray track, is suitable for wheelchairs and buggies; the side tracks are not.

The river and the trees make the rest. The Arrow is a willow-lined river with swimming spots in summer, according to the Queenstown Trail, and paths follow it out of town in both directions. Destination Queenstown says the town is planted with oaks, sycamores, rowans and cork elms, and in April and May they turn the town and the hills around it red and gold.

How to visit

What there is to do. These are the things with a time or a price attached, from the operators’ and official pages.

By car. Allow about 20 minutes from the centre of Queenstown, which is Destination Queenstown’s figure. We did not visit Arrowtown ourselves, so this page is research, not a visit.

By bus. Orbus Route 4 runs every day from the Stanley Street bus hub in Queenstown, through Arthurs Point, to Ramshaw Lane in Arrowtown. On the regional council’s timetable, which it describes as a guide, it goes about every half hour from early morning to 9am and from 3pm to 7pm, and hourly in between and into the evening. The ride takes a little over 20 minutes out and about half an hour back. The last timetabled bus back leaves Ramshaw Lane at 9.45pm. Pay with cash or a Bee Card, not a bank card: the adult fare is NZ$2.50 on a Bee Card or NZ$4 in cash.

By bike. The Queenstown Trail runs a recommended ride from the Queenstown Gardens to Arrowtown: 33 kilometres, four to six hours, easy to intermediate, by the lake, over the old Lower Shotover Bridge and along the Arrow into town. The Trail notes a detour on the Frankton stretch throughout 2026.

Making the most of it

Come for the colour. Autumn is Arrowtown’s great season, and the Arrowtown Autumn Festival, now in its 38th year, runs from 15 to 18 April 2027. The exact peak of the colour moves with the year and nobody can promise the week, but mid-to-late April is usually a good bet.

Pan for gold. In summer the museum runs 20-minute lessons in a trough outside, and guarantees gold to take home. All year it hires out a pan and trowel for NZ$5, with an instruction sheet, so you can try the Arrow itself. The museum is honest about the odds in the river: there is still gold to be found, and no guarantee you will find it.

Choose your walk. For an easy hour, the Arrow River Trail starts at Butlers Green and follows an irrigation pipeline above the river to the Norman Smith footbridge; Destination Queenstown warns it gets slippery in winter and spring. Tobins Track climbs to the Crown Terrace for a view right across the Whakatipu Basin, and Sawpit Gully makes a longer loop past water races and an old stone miners’ hut that Destination Queenstown recommends as a lunch stop.

Give a day to Macetown. Fifteen kilometres up the Arrow is what DOC calls one of the most intact historic goldfield towns in Otago, with a basic campsite and a 45-minute walk up the Rich Burn to the Homeward Bound stamper battery. DOC puts the walk in at three to four hours each way and the bike ride at one to two. Driving it is another matter: DOC describes a challenging 4WD track it does not maintain, with 23 unbridged river crossings and access by permit, and lists guided 4WD operators who will take you. The town’s business association warns the river can rise quickly in rain.

Find the ford. NZ Film Map places the crossing where Arwen carries Frodo away from the Ringwraiths in The Fellowship of the Ring on the Arrow River, about 200 metres upstream from the car park behind the main street, and says the flood that follows was filmed in Skippers Canyon, on the Shotover.

Nearby

Queenstown is the base, twenty minutes back down the road. The bus passes through Arthurs Point on the way, home of the Shotover Jet. In the other direction the Arrow River Bridges Trail heads for Gibbston and the Kawarau Bridge, where AJ Hackett began bungy jumping from the historic bridge in 1988.

Nearby, Ayrburn has turned a historic farm into a run of restaurants and bars, open every day. The Lake Hayes walkway is two to three hours return, and over the Crown Range is Wānaka. In winter, Destination Queenstown counts four ski areas within 20 to 60 minutes’ drive of Arrowtown.