Violent twist to stag do

Celebrating a friend's impending marriage went horribly wrong for a man who was stabbed twice at a campsite in Glenorchy, 40km from Queenstown, early yesterday.

Detective Sergeant Grahme Bartlett said an argument developed about 2.50am between a 53-year-old British man camping in a tent and two men who were using the kitchen at the Glenorchy Holiday Park.

One of the men who had been in the kitchen was stabbed once in the chest and once in the side of his stomach, Bartlett said.

The man was taken by ambulance to Dunedin Hospital and was last night in a serious but stable condition.

His companion suffered a minor knife wound to his finger but managed to restrain the British man for about an hour until police arrived, Bartlett said.

The two men in the kitchen are understood to have been part of a group from Gore who were in the township for a stag party.

Holiday Park manager Stan Roney said a group of about 20 campers had been out drinking and two of them had decided to "have a feed".

Roney said he had moved to Glenorchy from the Gold Coast of Australia to escape such violence. "You come back here and get something like this and it's a little bit frightening," he said.

The attack shocked other residents of the sleepy settlement at the top of Lake Wakatipu.

Nicole Scott, who has lived in Glenorchy for 15 years, said she did not know of any other stabbings in the time she had lived there.

"Everybody will be quite surprised. It's not exactly something that happens everyday," she said.

The British man has been charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and assault with a weapon.

- © Fairfax NZ News