Shotover Jet – Queenstown

Took this afternoon, a bright and sunny one, to do the shotover Jet.

The guide told us it was only the third time this summer he has been able to wear a t-shirt.

The summer has been a complete wash out.

Minibus
The deal is you take a bus down from downtown Queenstown over to the upper reaches of the shotover river. From here you recieve a little training on safety and what not to do, then you’re off.

Boat
The jet boats look pretty cool.
500 horsepower Buick v-twins each with about 15 passengers each.

In you get then for about 1/2 an hour you career down the shotover through some dramatic canyons in the lush green mountain terain.

The river is light blue, so clear you can see the fish swimming at the bottom of it.
All of this is lost on you as most of your concentration is on keeping from going overboard.

Don’t eat heavily before boarding this ride. The steady series of shocks and turns will see your food making a second appearance.

The driver gives you a little commentary as you rush along.
There’s a couple of things to be pointed out and learned, most specifically that the Shotover is the reason that Queenstown was populated in the first place due to $50,000,000 dollars worth of gold attributed to being found along its length.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the Jet Boats.

Shotover Jet, Queenstown

Shotover Jet, Jetboat, Queenstown

Meet the oldest rider, George.

Kawarau Bridge – Bungy jump

The first commercial Bungy site.

Copying from drug crazed egalitarian tribes down in South America somewhere, AJ and his friend from Holland had an idea that this might be a good thing to do.
Working together with scientists from the local university, they developed a formula to make the first Bungy rope.

This was to string people from a local bridge.

Mad
Initially as the blurb will tell you no-one was interested in this ridiculous and frightening sport. And in the first year they only managed to find 28 people mad enough to do it.

Sales
Hackett developed the ‘Bungy Code of Practice’ to qualify and quantify this mad new pursuit.

Slowly, more and more normal punters came in, Hackett become the Bill Gates of Bungy and Bungy became the multimillion pound sport it is today.

Kawarau Bridge, Bungy, New ZealandKawarau Bridge, Bungy, New Zealand

I did all this Bungy bollocks in Australia a few years back.
If you haven’t done it, you need to do it. If you have, don’t feel you need to do it again (unless your friends are watching, which mine aren’t ;) ).

Weblinks: AJ Hackett

Queenstown – Original Experiences

For those unfamiliar with New Zealand, Queenstown is like the adrenaline activity hotspot for New Zealand.

For Australia, it might be Cairns.
For Chile, it’s Pucon.
For Argentina, Bariloche.
For New Zealand, it’s Queenstown.

A little history
AJ Hackett first came up with the idea of Bungy jumping here things have been on the up and up since.

Rafting, fishing, heli-biking pretty much any activity you can think of goes off here.

Although there is too much to go into detail in this blog. The main ones you can find of interest and originality to Queenstown are:-

Jetboating
As well as the standard adrenaline junky fare, Queenstown lays claim to being the originator of some unique Kiwi technology.

I order to navigate the rivers, often empty and full of stones, a clever Kiwi had the idea of removing the propeller and replacing it with an internal jet engine.
That way they could travel the length of the rivers even when the water levels were low without smashing up the power prop.

The Kiwi’s love this and have turned into a tourist industry. Jet boating.

Bungy Jumping
As the town where Bungy first reared its bobbing head, the town has a number of sites scattered around it’s peripheries.
The main ones are Nevis, the swing and Karawau, the original.

Routeburn Trial
Probably the most famous walking route in New Zealand originates in the peripheries of the town.
Anyone serious about hiking, or with a couple of weeks in the itinerary should consider this trial as a once in a lifetime experience.
Bring your tent.

Weblinks: Jetboating – Shotover
Weblinks: Bungy – AJ Hackett
Weblinks: Routeburn – Routeburn