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Your time in the saddle starts with some time onboard. Take a Lake Wakatipu cruise on the historic TSS Earnslaw to disembark at Walter Peak High Country Farm before meeting your horse and guide.
This experienced guide will take you on a horse trek across rolling high country farmland to a lookout offering spectacular views of Lake Wakatipu and the surrounding mountains. The riding is easy, the scenery incredible and the memories enduring. Great family fun, this trip is more suited to first-time or novice riders.
After returning to the stables you’ll enjoy a delicious morning or afternoon tea at the Colonel’s Homestead Restaurant. Then it’s time to explore the glorious gardens and farmyard before heading back to Queenstown onboard the TSS Earnslaw, our iconic vintage steamship providing the perfect relaxing end to an exciting trip.
Things you should know
Extra Information
Real Journeys Visitor Centre on Steamer Wharf, 88 Beach Street, Queenstown Bay
Shoes/boots (non slip), warm clothing/jacket, long trousers recommended, sunscreen/sunglasses and camera.
The TSS Earnslaw is an integral part of Queenstown’s pioneering history and to this day a Queenstown icon.
TSS Earnslaw Vintage Steamship, 1912
She was commissioned by New Zealand Railways to service the communities around Lake Wakatipu. Launched in the same year as the Titanic, the TSS Earnslaw’s maiden voyage was on 18 October 1912.
Soon known as The Lady of the Lake, she provided an essential link between the isolated farming communities along the lake and the outside world. At 48 metres long, she was the biggest boat on the Lake and carried passengers, sheep, cattle, mail and supplies.
Nearly scrapped in 1968, she was rescued and purchased by Real Journeys and put to work once again carrying passengers around the Lake. Since then the TSS Earnslaw has been painstakingly restored to its original condition – everything you see is pretty much like it was a 100 years ago. Today, the TSS Earnslaw is the only coal fired steamship in operation in the southern hemisphere, making her one of the most unique experiences in the world.
The TSS Earnslaw has featured in several movies including a cameo in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as an Amazon River Boat. Parts of the trawler SS Venture in Peter Jackson’s King Kong were inspired by the TSS Earnslaw. Famous composer Ron Goodwin composed a piece of music inspired by the rhythm of the TSS Earnslaw’s engines.
