Farewell to a fun-loving tourism legend – Lindsay Westaway

A legendary Queenstown tourism character and the fun-loving, cheeky face of Walter Peak’s Farm Tours for nearly 40 years, Lindsay Westaway passed away recently at home in Kirwee, North Canterbury.

Westaway and wife Dianne managed Walter Peak Tours on site, Westaway entertaining thousands of unsuspecting tourists with his good-humoured Kiwi farm style, sheep shearing, dog demonstrations and dry wit. Many, especially the non-English speaking visitors, would leave none the wiser that he’d been ‘pulling their leg’. It was part of his farm charm and a winning recipe, as were the hundreds of freshly baked scones and pikelets that Dianne turned out for masses of tourists disembarking from the Earnslaw.

Westaway, best known for his Mackenzie tartan kilt, was also renowned for his Drag Queen prowess when it came time for the Queenstown Winter Festival Drag Queen Race. His farm hat, laden with miniature memorabilia badges donated by tourists the world over, and a whole box more, will be a fond reminder for his family of a life well lived.