n alternative route north from Lumsden takes you to Queenstown via State Highway 6. The road passes through farmland much of the way, but there are good patches of bush to be seen in the on the forested flanks of some of the ranges. The road goes first through Athol, past yet another CastleHill, and then reaches Kingston on the southern shore of Lake Wakatipu.

This is a z-shaped lake more than 77 kilometres long. Only Te Anau to the south and Taupo to the north are larger.

Despite its area its depth is surprisingly consistent. Queenstown is about 47 kilometres from Kingston, situated at the head of Queen Bay where the lake takes a sharp turn west. Situated at the foot of Ben Lomond, it is one of the prettiest of our towns and is nearly always thronged with tourists.

Queenstown deserves a leisurely exploration, so take your lunch and sit on the wharf and watch the enormous trout in the clear water. Along with these are black teal scooting along the lake floor with their distinctive swimming action and black-billed gulls sitting on the water, the blue emphasising their pristine white-and-grey feathers.

Although there is not much evidence of it today, this area was once thickly forested. Moa seem to have been quite common and several notable archaeological finds have been made. At Hawksburn, west of Alexandra, a thirteenth-century midden containing the charred remains of nearly 700 moa was found, together with the typical stone blades and choppers of moa-hunting sites. One of the best preserved moa remains comes from Queenstown - the dried head of the moa Megalapteryx didinus which was found in a cave near the town.

For the tree-fancier, the largest known conifer in New Zealand, a Californian big tree, grows a short distance from Queenstown just off the Frankton road, and at around 40 metres it is only half-grown. Particularly in autumn, the many exotics around the district are most remarkable - a mass of glowing golds and reds.

From Double Cone, the highest peak of the Remarkables, a few kilometres south-east of the town, extraordinary views can be had of mountains and vales stretching off in all directions. The most prominent are Mt Earnslaw and Mt Aspiring to the north-west and, far to the north, Mt Cook.

A trip to Lake Hayes, just out of Queenstown along State Highway 6, is essential for any naturalist, even for the less energetic. If you can, go in autumn when the exotic trees around the lake are in full colour. The sapphire waters of the lake behind the golden rim of poplars and willows and the rugged hills rising behind them are an unforgettable sight. The lake itself is a wildlife reserve noted for its waterfowl. Large numbers of Australian coots are found here, together with black teal and pukeko. There is also good fishing with large brown trout and perch being caught.

Although there is some dispute about this, Lake Hayes seems to have been named for the notorious pirate and blackbirder 'Bully' Hayes who was on the nearby Arrow goldfields in 1863. He was an unsavoury character so there would seem to be a good case for giving it back its Maori name Wai-whakaata - 'water that reflects'.