The "Lady of the Lake" is a 51-metre twin-screw steamer that has been working Lake Wakatipu since 1912, originally as a cargo and passenger ferry for the high-country sheep stations. She is still coal-fired, and you can watch the stokers heaving shovel after shovel into the boilers through an open viewing window — half the appeal of the trip.
The standard run takes you across to Walter Peak, a working sheep station on the south shore, where you can watch a sheepdog demonstration and eat a barbecue lunch in a restored homestead. The crossing alone is the point: the deck, the wake, and the absurdly photogenic mountains.