Rent

By GUY WILLIAMS Three long-time downtown Queenstown business owners say the next six months will determine the fate of many like them. One’s closing his restaurant for good, another says he’s staring at a ‘‘bloody long autumn’’, while the third predicts...

By TRACEY ROXBURGH A QUEENSTOWN travel agency’s done a Covid-induced pirouette, hoping to do its bit to help. While xtravel co-owner Victoria Keating says shifting to focus solely on repatriation flights may have started as a way to help the business...

By GUY WILLIAMS A long-time staple of Queenstown’s dining scene’s about to emerge from a brief hibernation. Seafood restaurant Fishbone’s reopening on Thursday after a Covid-induced pause in trading. Owner Darren Lovell closed the Beach Street eatery last August, opening in its...

We all read with interest Darren Lovell’s piece about Queenstown’s stampeding elephant and how local businesses are hurting (MS, Nov 26). Now let’s address some of the misconceived comments about tourism and business in a Covid-19 world. Tourism businesses in Queenstown,...

By MATTHEW MCKEW Tearful selfies sent via text in the middle of the night reveal the heavy strain on an 11-year-old girl stranded in Aussie and missing her mum. It’s been almost a full year since Peggy Hieronymus held her daughter...

THERE’S a bloody big elephant stampeding through the streets of Queenstown and no one, it seems, can see it. And if someone doesn’t do something soon, that bloody big elephant is going to smash our streets to smithereens. Our elephant, the...

By MATTHEW MCKEW She's back at work and wearing her infamous, infectious smile again thanks to Queenstown’s community spirit. Finnish bartender Essi Lehtonen’s had a tough few months but the staff, regulars and friends of Frankton Arm Tavern rallied round her...

By PHILIP CHANDLER Concern's growing for dozens of Queenstown-based Brazilians who can't get back to their adopted hometown. A local Brazilian knows of 113 of her countryfolk on New Zealand work visas who were visiting Brazil when borders shut because of the...

You could excuse Wakatipu home owners with big mortgages on high-priced properties being pretty nervous at the minute, given the Covid-19-induced implosion of this area's main industry, tourism.  However, Arrowtown-based Roost Mortgage Brokers principal Mark Pullar tells Mountain Scene there...

If you're looking to live in Queenstown, you might want to brace yourself – the resort is now the most expensive place to rent in the country. It comes as the waitlist for housing help in the resort skyrockets, with...