Exploring Cromwell

On our drive from Lake Wanaka to Queenstown, we stopped to explore Cromwell.

Cromwell is known for its many vineyards and stone-fruit orchards.  We hoped to take an orchard tour but when we arrived we learned they were not being offered because the fruit was not ripe enough to pick.  Next we headed to a unique winery that uses retired oak barrels to cook it's food in. Each food is paired with the wine which corresponds to the barrel used for cooking the various meat. This was a delicious lunch with a great presentation and provided for some entertainment.

The Wild Earth restaurant was situated on the banks of a beautiful gorge and in front of the Goldfield's Mining Centre.  After we ate we hiked around the hills reading about the history of the Chinese miners that worked and lived here and seeing some reproductions of their living conditions and machines.  The mountainside was covered in lavender flowers, and as we hiked mom realized she smelled thyme, and remembered that this Otago area is known for its wild-growing thyme that was in bloom all over the mountain!  At the end of exploring, the kids and Dad shoveled and panned for gold.  Somehow they never get too old for this!

Unique food cooked in oak wine barrels

Hiking among wild-thyme in an old gold mining site

Panning for gold

When fruit is ripe, there are often stands along the sides of the road that sell fresh fruit ice-cream. Since we were here in an off-season, we stopped in at a large fruit market that was selling this delicious treat and it truly was exceptional!  They had ice cream slabs that they put into a special mixer with a cup of your choice of fruit and then mixed it up - we weren't sure exactly what made this different than typical fruit ice-cream, but it really was unique and a great treat before we finished on to Queenstown.

Enjoying fruit ice-cream