Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

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Jack's Point Golf Club, on Lake Wakatipu, beneath the Remarkables Range, South Island, New Zealand

February 10, 20153 min read2015

Dateline February 10, 2015, Jack's Point Golf Club

The first question the pro at Jack's Point gets is whether the course is named for Jack Nicklaus. It is not. It is named for Jack Tewa, known as Māori Jack, who saved two friends from drowning when their boat overturned on Lake Wakatipu in 1862, near what is now the Jack's Point village. He is also credited with the first discovery of gold in the Arrow River that same year, which set off the gold rush in the region. The course is one of the top-rated in the world. Snow fell the night before we played, so the Remarkables Range stood over us in white. On the second hole, an airplane landed on the grass strip just below the tee, then took off almost immediately with a load of skydivers, whose chutes opened against the mountains as we played on. The fourth tee is across a small road and through a stone wall, with views down Lake Wakatipu and out to the high ranges. It is a true links: you do not see the clubhouse again until you walk off the eighteenth green. We agreed that it was the most beautiful and challenging course we had ever played, and we told the pro so. We were rained out at The Hills the next day, and the local advice was that Jack's Point was the better course anyway, so we went back and played it a second time. That second round was the end of our golf in New Zealand. It was a spectacular ending.

#new-zealand #south-island #queenstown

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Coming down the road into the valley toward Queenstown and the Millbrook Resort

New Zealand

February 10, 20158 min read2015

Dateline February 10, 2015, Millbrook Resort and Queenstown

We came down into the valley to our final base in New Zealand, the Millbrook Resort, just outside Queenstown. The one-lane bridges in this part of the country are a queueing art form, watching the arrows to figure out who has the right of way. We checked into a two-bedroom cottage on the golf course. It was Pete's birthday on the 6th, so we let him pick dinner; he wanted to eat in. Janice and Bunny made the grocery run and came back with the most beautiful rainbow we had seen in a while. The week that followed was a series of rounds at Millbrook, a side trip to Arrowtown for Stephanie's recommended tapas at La Rumbla, an introduction to New Zealand's Blue Duck vodka, an extra night that Will Owen rescued for us when we found an error in our own schedule, a rained-out tee time at The Hills (refunded), a visit to the Kiwi Birdlife Park, the Queenstown gondola, and two old men attempting the Haka in front of an All Blacks poster. We close out New Zealand at Jack's Point, in the next post.

#new-zealand #south-island #queenstown

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