We packed up early and headed to Queenstown to tour around and to take everyone on a jet boat ride. With the holiday, Queenstown was about like Jackson Hole or Yellowstone on the 4th of July. It took almost an hour to find a place to park, which was about 20 minutes from downtown. We got to the jet boat bus loading location with 5 minutes (or less) to spare. Our tour was upstream a ways on the Shotover River, and it took about an hour to get there in a 4 wheel drive bus. It is a one way road, common in New Zealand, and we had to back up a couple of times to a wide spot for oncoming traffic to get around us. Everyone was so excited to go on the adventure. An interesting side note is that we signed no waivers to ride the boats, no problem for Reese, a 5 year old to ride.
Following are some photos of our ride out to the river for the jetboat ride.
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| Queenstown from a distance |
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| One way road into Skippers Canyon, built in about 1877 and never improved... |
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| Old footbridge over the canyon, had been used for bungee jumping, until higher ones came along. |
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| Shotover River, we will be riding it at 50-60mph soon |
We had an awesome ride on the boat. The water would have been too shallow for my boat, with a regular outdrive hanging off the back. The jet drive was actually developed in New Zealand, so that people could navigate the rivers here.
Following are more photos and a couple of short videos that Cody took from the boat.
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The Shotover River is below us.
We just flew up the river and back. The driver averaged about 50 mph the whole way. It is hard to see, but he just squeezed between some gravel bars a few times. |
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