Paul and Jean's Blog: New Zealand South Island (Day 8)

DAY 8 QUEENSTOWN (MILLBROOK) SATURDAY 10.2.07

Weather fine / track good for us today and we were off to play one of NZ's premier courses - Millbrook. Grabbed breakfast at a cafe in town and bought a couple of the biggest Anzac biscuits ever seen for sustenance around the course.

Millbrook is another links style course but not in the strict style of the Scottish variety. When gold was discovered at Arrowtown a couple of Frenchmen bought the land and established a wheat farm to provide bread for the miners. Parts of the old cottages and farm buildings have been retained and used throughout the resort and the magnificient 150 year old trees that lined the original driveway remain today.

Playing courses like this gives you an appreciation of just how strong and skillful the pros are when they can hit out of the rough with control. Whilst I was able to get out of the rough, sometimes it was only a few meters and always without any control over distance. If you missed a green and finished in the rough and had to chip out you knew in advance you were about to rack up a big score (if you could find the ball that is). The fairways are cut to a consistent 11mm and you are guaranteed a perfect lie though the undulating terrain often meant that your feet were above or below the ball. Off the fairway came the intermediate rough at 22mm, the semi rough at 75mm and the impossible genuine rough at 125+mm. The course is set on lands that give you shots from elevated tees as well as approaches to elevated greens and includes a number of blind shots. Judging distances was a real challenge for us with the changes in elevation as this is a feature we don't normally have to combat on our home course.

Anyway, I hit the ball pretty well generally with only 2 shockers both involving losing confrontations with the rough. Eight pars wasn't a bad effort first time on the course and a number of three puts cost me a few more. Jean not so good and she struggled a bit around this tough layout and treacherous rough. Less said the better but another win to me makes it 2 to 1 for the big fella.

The worst feature was that play was very slow. We followed six groups of four - all Yanks on tour out of Seattle. While we were waiting on a tee with one of the groups I started munching on my Anzac biscuit. A couple of tees later we caught up with them again & I heard one of them telling the others that "this guy was eating a biscuit as big as a manhole cover". I wasn't exaggerating when I said earlier that they were the biggest biscuits I had seen.

Course rating : quite a picturesque course set inside an extinct volcano. Beautifully presented with extremely quick and tricky greens. We both rated the course 8 to 8.5. Highly recommended but perhaps on weekdays it may not be as busy as playing on the weekend.

After golf we blew the froth off a couple and knocked over a ploughman's lunch. Once again fantastic value and bloody beautiful tucker. I am convinced that on holidays this is the best way to have lunch as it is satisfying but doesn't wreck your appetite for dinner at night.

Took some backroads through to Queenstown to have a look at something different rather than just driving back the same way we had driven out. Bit of an achievement - did it without getting bamboozled for a change. Took the road that bordered Lake Wakatipu (past Outrigger). Had seen this road the day before from up the top of the gondola station.Turns out the road went to the north western end of the lake to the township of Glenorchy. The township wasn't anything memorable but the drive was a cracker with superb lake and mountain views.

Funny how sightseeing can make you thirsty. Back home to our room for a couple of glasses of vino before hitting the bright lights. No way we were going to have anything out of the ordinary tonight. After having a good look around, we chose the obvious one - the one that gave us a couple of free beers. Just joking - it was the lamb rack on the menu that won me. Jean went for a monster feed of mussels (obviously trying to build herself up for the next match). This restaurant was situated upstairs in the oldest remaining building in Queenstown. Originally it was a bank and it was made out of schist rock (the same as the wine tunnel). A closed in outside balcony with large windows gave great views over the mall & it was an ideal people watching spot.

We didn't eat dinner till 9.45pm & it was just getting dark. Takes a bit of getting used to this eating dinner in daylight. Anyway, the service was friendly and the food was bloody beautiful!
That's more like it.

Decided to have a nightcap and a look at the Wharf Casino on the way home. A couple of sambucas and the quickest $20 through the machines and we were off home in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Yet another great day done justice to.

Visit: www.millbrook.co.nz