Queenstown is regarded as the adventure sport capital of the world. If it is a crazy thing to be doing then someone is doing it here.
This morning we went downtown and the streets are just lined with places to take you bungee jumping, mountain climbing, kayaking, etc. Everyone also seems very young and healthy. Since we are only mildly adventurous we book a trip on the world famous Shotover Jet Boats. We took their van from downtown to the Shotover River and got suited up.
The boats are much like jet skis and are power by water pumps. They only need a few inches of water and they are fast. The driver really take advantage of this. I estimated that at some point we were going at least 50 mph which seems very fast when on water.
This other boat was about to do a 360 degree spin.
Although I knew we were going to get wet, and we did, I took my camera with us tucked in a waterproof pocket. Every once in a while I would quickly take it out, snap a picture and jam it back in to safety. They told us to keep our hands inside the boat as they went so close to the cliffs you would get seriously injured by the rocks as we went by.
Back downtown we wandered around a bit and had lunch.
Down at the waterfront we watched people water skiing and hanging from parachutes pulled by boats.
This a panorama I made a few days later of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables Mountains in the background.
Later in the afternoon we drove to Te Anua, to camp for the night, in preparation for our trip to Milford Sound tomorrow.
This is a picture of the Remarkables from the other side.
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