Lake Wakatipu, the 1912 TSS Earnslaw Coal Steamer, Walter Peak & Queenstown Gardens

Every few hours across Queenstown Bay, a deep brass whistle echoes off the granite face of Cecil Peak and a plume of dark coal smoke rises from a bright-red funnel at Steamer Wharf. Stepping aboard the 1912 vintage steamship TSS Earnslaw and walking the conifer-shaded peninsula of Queenstown Gardens are the two timeless ways to experience Lake Wakatipu (Whakatipu Waimāori).

1. TSS Earnslaw ("The Lady of the Lake", 1912) & Walter Peak High Country Farm

• Launched the Same Year as the Titanic (realnz.co.nz): Commissioned by New Zealand Railways to serve remote sheep stations around the 80-kilometre lake before roads existed, the 51.2-metre (168-foot) twin-screw steamer TSS Earnslaw was built by John McGregor & Co. in Dunedin in 1911, dismantled into numbered steel plates, railed to Kingston at the southern tip of Lake Wakatipu, and launched on 18 October 1912. Named after 2,830-metre Mount Earnslaw (Pikirakatahi) at the head of the lake, she is today one of the last remaining commercial coal-fired passenger steamships operating anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Inside the Open Engine Room & Wheelhouse: Unlike modern cruise vessels, the TSS Earnslaw lets passengers walk onto a grated steel viewing gallery directly above the open engine room. Here you can watch stokers shovel coal by hand into the glowing fireboxes while the twin triple-expansion steam engines drive the polished connecting rods below, then browse historical photographs in the bow mini-museum and listen to the live pianist in the promenade saloon.
• Crossing to Walter Peak High Country Farm: You can book either a standalone 90-minute scenic return cruise across the lake or a 3.5- to 4-hour excursion disembarking at Walter Peak High Country Farm on the sheltered western shore, where border collies muster Merino sheep above the lakeside gardens of the Colonel's Homestead (famous for its wood-fired high-country barbecue lunch and dinner).

2. The Queenstown Gardens Peninsula Loop & 1913 Scott Memorial (Established 1867)

• A 3.2-Kilometre Botanical Peninsula Trail (qldc.govt.nz): Forming the eastern arm of Queenstown Bay just two minutes' walk past Marine Parade, the 14.5-hectare Queenstown Gardens peninsula was set aside as a botanical reserve in 1867. A flat, wheelchair-friendly gravel promenade circles the entire water's edge beneath towering Californian giant sequoias (Wellingtonias), Douglas firs, and weeping willows, passing a formal rose garden, an ornamental pond, and the 1913 Scott Memorial, carved directly into a massive glacial boulder in tribute to Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions.
• New Zealand's Oldest Disc Golf Course: Tucked among the giant conifers inside the peninsula is an 18-basket disc golf course established in 1996; walking the course is completely free, and you can rent frisbee discs for a few dollars from sports shops along Shotover and Camp streets.