The Shotover Jet

Just outside of Queenstown there is a very scenic and narrow canyon carved by the Shotover River. This being New Zealand, full of adrenaline junkies and extreme sports, some enterprising person back in 1965 decided...why not take people on heart-pounding speedboat rides through this narrow canyon?  So the Shotover Jet was begun.  It is considered to be the first Jetboat ride anywhere in the world, and has become a very commercially successful and iconic "must-do" in the Queenstown area. Here is a picture from the spectator bridge looking down on a boat coming out of the opening to the canyon.

A jetboat operates with two engines, both water propelled and with a lot of horsepower.  It goes fast, turns on a dime, and can do 360 degree spins.  So, as our kids said, it is basically just like our 1978 Lund boat with 7.5hp engine that we have at our cabin in Perham, MN.  Minus the fishing rods and tackle. Right.  Here's a shot of our boat. We are in the second and third rows.

As we waited our turn, the passing boats seemed to zip by pretty fast, but it is only once you step in the boat and start your trip that you fully appreciate the thrill. The ride was very high speed and we seemingly came within inches (OK, probably feet) of the canyon walls. And, then with a slight warning by the driver, we would do crazy 360's, sometimes in the canyon, making you feel as if you are surely going to hit the rocks. Here is a one minute snippet of our video we took. It includes some of the narrow canyon passes, and finishes with two 360's.

As you could hear, there was lots of shrieking and screaming and whooping, mostly from Jen.  Imagine 25 or so minutes of that, with three or four separate passages through the narrowest parts of the canyon, and you hopefully get a picture of how thrilling it was.

Nonetheless, we seemed to be in no great danger.  The professional drivers on staff all seem to be young, male, handsome and unafraid of danger.  In other words, just like Pete.  Errr, anyway, our driver, Nick, was a fairly long tenured driver, and we assume one of the best.  We saw him in pictures with various famous celebrities and royalty (including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - William and Kate - you may have heard of them) that he had taken for a ride.  We assume that if they trusted royalty with Nick, we were pretty safe.

Here's a last pic as we got ready to dock at the end of the ride.  If this blog was able to upload pictures with better resolution, you would see seriously funny looks on all of our faces.  What a fun day!