Winter Bar-Hopping

Queenstown’s “bar scene can match any city for quantity, variety and quality and the disarming sincerity of this cold town’s warm heart is impossible to resist,” writes West Australia Today’s Amy Cooper on a recent trip to the southern city claiming “the world’s ultimate winter party”. “The festival is on while I’m visiting but drop in any time of year, the brochure states, and you’ll find ‘unrivalled warmth and friendliness’. Cooper asks the whereabouts of the local bars and is told there are 120 within walking distance of her hotel. “We seek out the notoriously elusive Subculture, a backstreet basement cocktail bar and nightclub so tricky to locate that locals swear it actually moves. Friends are acquired in Queenstown as effortlessly as drinks and our crew soon fills a petite hideaway called Mini Bar. What’s lacking in space (it holds about 20) is compensated for by a hefty menu of 100 international beers. Next day I head reluctantly to the airport, unable to shake the feeling I’m leaving a party too soon. Queenstown’s boasts are justified.”