Queenstown Mall

/ Another Great Space: The Queenstown Mall, best known for active outdoor activities in the rugged, beautiful mountains and lakes surrounding it, Queenstown, in the southern extreme of New Zealand, is also a charming village with a friendly town center that is a wonderful place to simply hang out and relax.
The Queenstown Mall is the heart and soul of town, and focus of action with very good restaurants such as Tatler and Chicos, along with wine shops, boutiques, and specialty stores. This short pedestrian promenade runs through the middle of town and is flanked by several little side streets and a lovely the lakefront, making it very easy to find your way around this village center on foot. No driving necessary.
There are some hip cafes along the mall with outside and indoor seating where you can come for your morning cappuccino with a croissant or perhaps brunch, read the newspaper and meet some local folks. Rustic, wooden architecture in a human-scale just one or two stories high creates a soothing atmosphere, enhanced by trees and comfortable outdoor furniture.
The mall leads directly to the picturesque waterfront of Lake Wakatipu with a sandy beach to the left and a boardwalk to the right, which leads to the wharf and small marina, with mountains on all sides. You could swim in the lake, although its nippy temperature never varies more than a few degrees throughout the year, for the lake is extremely deep, scooped out by glaciers eons ago, as were most of the nearby valleys. The vertical, jagged mountains, on the other hand, are still growing a half-inch every year, pushed skyward by the collision of tectonic plates.
All around the Queenstown Mall you will discover a compact zone of a half-dozen streets featuring nearly 300 restaurants, cafes and bars along with plenty of shops, postcards places, clothing boutiques and outdoor gear shops. It figures that such an active recreational area is a fine place to buy sporting goods, offering a good range of high-quality hiking gear and clothing, backpacks, shoes and boots. After all, with all these experienced outdoors people visiting they've got a high level of customer, so the shops have to provide high-quality goods to make the sale.
Of course there are souvenir shops selling products made in New Zealand such as the ubiquitous sheepskin and delicious local foods including various jams, and fruits. The most popular souvenirs are anything with New Zealand printed on it, like t-shirts, coffee mugs and wall hangings.
On one hand, it is wonderful to simply relax in town, shop, dine, gaze at the lake and mountains, and enjoy a short boat ride, which is enough for many visitors. You really don't have to do much except sit on a bench and look about at the attractive sights. For all the slackers and layabouts, perhaps the finest Queenstown activity is simply kicking back at a café on the mall and watching the people walk by in a never-ending stream. But Queenstown is mostly about the scenery and adventure activities, so you will probably want to plunge into nature's bosom. This is adventure central, so whatever your passion, you can find it here.
Queenstown is perhaps the most popular visitor destination in New Zealand because of the outdoor activities, so get out of town and take advantage, which is really the main reason for coming here: visit Milford Sound, ride a jeep into the back country, tour some vineyards, take a cruise on the lake, watch a sheep farming demonstration, and maybe jump off a bridge on the end of a bungee, along with dozens of other exciting options.
But you will always come back to town and to the tranquil comforts of the Queenstown Mall -- in the evening especially -- and you'll find this is an excellent place to gravitate back to. Nearly all of the shops stay open until 9:00pm since potential shoppers are out of town adventuring during the day and so the merchants remain open to accommodate and cater to those late arrivals, seven days a week, twelve months each year. Or if you just skip all that adventure and stay in town all day, that's OK too.