Drunk Australians have been causing trouble in New Zealand tourist mecca Queenstown, with police called to seven incidents over the weekend.
A drunk Australian man was arrested for disorderly behaviour after he went into a Queenstown bakery and ate another customer's pie.
The man, 33, who refused to give police his details, was taken to the police station, where he vomited on arrival.
Police picked up another drunk man about 7am yesterday, asleep in the entranceway to Queenstown Airport.
The man could not remember where he was staying or where he had left his bags and said he had decided to come to the airport because he just wanted to go home.
Police took no further action.
On Saturday, police arrested a 27-year-old drunk man who stripped off his jewellery and clothes while on a jet boat ride through the Kawarau River.
The man was referred to Mental Health Services after he was fished out of the freezing cold water.
Yesterday, a pair of Australian brothers were arrested after refusing to turn their sound system down in a backpackers hostel. They were eventually evicted.
In total, police dealt with seven incidents involving drunk Australians on Friday and Saturday.
Despite what appeared to be a spate of unruly tourists from across the ditch at the resort town, Queenstown police said it was just an "idiotic few" that were giving others a bad name.
Sergeant Mark Gill said considering the amount of tourists that came through Queenstown at this time of the year, it sounded a bit worse than it was.
"It definitely is the busiest time of the year, and we get tourists from all over the world here, but by far and away the most we get are Australian.
"For the most part, at least 90 per cent of Australians are just here to enjoy the place with families and are no trouble."
According Ministry of Economic Development 2010 figure, More than 1.1 million Aussies travelled through Queenstown Airport that year.
Gill said there was always going to be these sorts of problems, but Australians "as a rule" were generally no worse than New Zealanders or anyone else.
"These are probably proportionate to the amount of Australians that are coming in, and because we are a rural police area and don't have the presence like a metropolitan area such as Christchurch or Wellington, we do need to exercise more discretion.
"There's always disorderly behaviour but the city council, along with bar owners and the police are working well to keep it under wraps."
- STACEY KIRK/Stuff.co.nz with The Southland Times
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