Take a walk back in time
Local creators putting together a curated walking tour, available in the palm of your hand. That’s the business model for VoiceMap, a downloadable app on your phone, and Virginia Driver is the voice behind the local tours which shine a spotlight on Queenstown and Arrowtown’s rich history.
Driver’s business The Southern Compass creates immersive walking, driving and cycling tours around Otago. The tours are delivered through the VoiceMap app and use GPS to play a rich, professionally produced audio automatically as you move – just pop your headphones in and away you go. There are currently two tour options for Queenstown, From the Green to the Grave: A Queenstown Story, and The Golden Thread: Tracing Arrowtown’s Past.
“The tour will have one specific starting place and then off you go,” Driver says. “It follows a specific route that the creator has chosen and uses GPS points as you go along. As you’re walking along, there’ll be times it’s quiet and then it will start talking about something that’s going on around you.”
The tours will start with a brief explanation of who’s guiding you and how the tour will work. The one in Queenstown starts in the Village Green, giving you an explainer of how it came to be and then heads towards the Speight’s Ale House before carrying on around the town, explaining some of the sights and buildings. The commentary will be on history, activities that are going on, scenic viewpoints, local characters and more. It ends in the cementary, hence the name, and then suggests different activities that people may like to do in Queenstown.
When Driver was putting together the tour, she also learned a bit along the way, mostly about Rees himself.
“My knowledge of history in that area was more based around the gold mining, so I didn’t understand the part he played before that actually took off, and then the establishment of Queenstown, so that was really interesting.”
She also enjoyed the gardens part of the tour – sourcing old photos, which you’ll be able to see in the app, and looking at the change over the years. The Arrowtown tour takes you along Tobin’s Track and around some of the residential areas, explaining the history of the old buildings.
“I think it’s quite interesting for people not just to be in a tourist area, because Arrowtown is quite small, so I did find it interesting to see what else was out there, not just the main street.”
Driver’s based in Dunedin and has a background in interior architecture. She first started doing the tours in 2002, starting with one in the Otago peninsula, which was well received. She left her job last year and while looking for work, jumped back in doing the tours and really enjoyed it. Starting with the Dunedin area, she soon delved into the Queenstown Lakes area. She’s enjoys history and is delighted to be able to pass some of that on.
“I think a lot of the time we travel somewhere because someone says it looks nice, we don’t necessarily understand the place and what’s around us. I think it’s important for people to know. Travel’s changing a lot and this adds into that slow travel atmosphere that’s coming through a little bit more now – where you can slow down and you can actually take your time, hear about and see things that you might not necessarily do.”
If you’d like to enjoy a personal tour, without the schedules or crowds, you can download the VoiceMap app from Google Play or the App store for free, then simply search Queenstown or Arrowtown and you’ll find the tours. You can also download the tours so you don’t need internet as you go along. To learn more about each walk, head to the Southern Compass website.
