Nestled against the shores of Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by mountains, Glenorchy is a tiny town which at only 45 minutes' drive from Queenstown seems almost immune to Lakes tourists.
It is somewhere you could easily get into a conversation with the locals going about their daily business.
Jenny Keogh and Rod Spackman, have a modern, stone-trimmed house that experiences a population boom every summer when family come to stay.
A newcomer to Glenorchy, Jenny came three years ago after meeting Rod, a driver for Dart River Safaris, who having lived there 10 years, could almost pass for a local. Their house is as quiet as can be with buoyant grandson Jak Keogh (5) showing off his gifts from Santa.
Now, only Jenny's daughter Amelia-Kate, husband Stew and their sons Charlie and Jak remain before heading back to Dunedin. Jak waxes lyrical about his holiday destination: "I can go and play tennis and play golf and go fishing and go walking on the boardwalk and go to the park and skate-park ..."
Stew holds fond memories of the town he visited for the first time during a school camp in the late '90s when they tramped Greenstone Valley, and has visited ever since on fishing trips.
The town stands out as a safe destination for kids - they can leave their bike on the side of the road and no-one steals it.
"Everyone's really friendly and everyone seems to know everyone. People give a wave if you are sitting outside on the deck and stop in to say 'hello'."
Jenny, who works at the garage, Glenorchy Lodge and even teaches local children piano and keyboard at school, and Rod are renting the property, but would love to one day buy their slice of Glenorchy.
Jenny leaves the gardening of their modest section to Rod: "He's very proud of his garden", and the family get plenty of satisfaction from having barbecues on the deck that dominates one side of the house. Their family have almost all departed for home in Christchurch and Dunedin and all seems set to return to its quietly busy normalcy.
However, Glenorchy and their home will come back to life this weekend for a highlight in the social calendar the Glenorchy races. The lawn will once again play host to tents before the season is out.
GLENORCHY
• Located 44km southwest of Queenstown on the edge of Lake Wakatipu.
• Glenorchy is the gateway for travelling to Paradise and Kinloch Townships, and for tramping tracks in the Rees, Dart, Routeburn and Greenstone/Caples Valleys.
• Along with Kinloch, Glenorchy was one of the meeting and resting places used by Maori who would journey from the West Coast to Lake Wakatipu's head in search of the pounamu found only in the Dart and Routeburn Valleys.
• The first settlers arrived in the 1860s searching for grazing land, followed by prospectors looking for gold and scheelite - an important source of tungsten and an attractive prize for collectors. For more than 100 years, farming and tourism have been a major contributors to the area's economy. Early visitors arrived on the TSS Earnslaw steam ship.
• The surrounding area was filmed in numerous scenes of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as well as the Chronicles of Narnia series as well as for television adverts.
• Glenorchy was officially a railway station because all of the steamers that docked there were owned by the New Zealand Railways Department. The rails from the end of the wharf, which were used to move goods to the shed, were the shortest piece of railway laid in New Zealand.
• The town is situated close to Te Wahipounamu - the South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area, which includes the nearby Dart Valley, home to the endangered yellowhead (mohua) insectivore birds, and long-tailed bats, among many other species. Both the Rees and Routeburn Valleys have yielded remains of a species of moa that stood about 3m tall.
