Only reachable by water · Queenstown, Otago & Fiordland
Walter Peak, the farm the 1912 steamer runs to
Across the lake there is a high country farm with a restaurant, and no road reaches it: you go on the TSS Earnslaw, a coal-fired steamer that has been sailing since 1912. RealNZ runs it, and the boat is half the plan.
The boat is not the transport, it is the plan
The TSS Earnslaw is a 1912 coal-fired steamer and the last hand-fired passenger steamship left in the southern hemisphere. You can go below and watch the stokers work the engine room. Anyone who books thinking only about the farm misses half of what they paid for.
What is there when you land
A high country farm on the far shore, with a restaurant, sheep shearing and a sheepdog demonstration. It is a walk on the hillside among animals: sheep, deer and Highland cattle. The homestead's colonial garden fills with tulips and daffodils in spring, so right now it is one of the few things at its best. Allow four to five hours return.
The prices, and why these ones
Checked on RealNZ's own site: the cruise is NZ$115 and the Walter Peak buffet NZ$175 at standard rate. Other numbers going around do not add up: the NZ$75 seen in videos belongs to the other boat, the Spirit of Queenstown catamaran, and the NZ$219 some reviews quote is not the rate. It sells out, so book.
The complaints, which are real and specific
Reviews are genuinely divided and it is worth knowing beforehand. What repeats is not the boat but the running of it: everything rushed, the buffet not topped up for the last tables, the afternoon cruise packed, and shearing cancelled for rain with no warning. Some call it a glorified petting zoo. Almost nobody criticises the boat.
Two things worth asking as you board
RealNZ does not publish the shearing time, so ask on the way up the gangway. And the steamer goes into dry dock once a year in early winter, covered on those days by the catamaran: in 2026 that ran from 18 May to 26 June, so in September the real steamer is sailing.