Cromwell travel guide

From Clyde, SH8 negotiates the Cromwell Gorge and plays tag with a section of Lake Dunstan, which on the map looks like the antenna of a large blue sea creature. At its head, 23 km to the north, is the tidy little town of Cromwell. Cromwell is faced with five very large dilemmas: a pear, an apple, a nectarine, an apricot and its proximity to Queenstown. It is the latter of course with which it struggles the most. Just how do you stop any tourist so intent on reaching perhaps the busiest tourist town in the country? Well, it seems some bright spark (there is always one) thought a sculpture of four man-eating pieces of fruit might be a good idea; you have to wonder if this has only added to the dilemma. Sure, people stop, they stare, make the suitable ooh and ahh noises, then take the inevitable photographs, but that is often the problem – they go no further. That’s Cromwell. Forever and around the globe, Cromwell has become that place with the whooping fruit, ingrained forever in a million memories with a silly photo. Having said that, Cromwell is ideally situated between Wanaka, Queenstown, the Lindis Pass to Mount Cook and SH8 to Dunedin. The accommodation here is much cheaper than Queenstown and the place is far less stressful. It is also in a great position to access five ski fields . It does in fact make a lot of sense, despite the fruit, to base yourself here. What’s more, it is also one of the sunniest, warmest places in the south and has to be given considerable credit for being the only place in the world that has a reserve set aside especially for beetles.