New Zealand Day 9: Queenstown to Wanaka

Everybody got up looking forward to the day’s events, and much less apprehensive than yesterday. We had arranged to all go for a game of crazy golf (somehow Lucia won!), a walk around the shops and lunch at Ferg again. After lunch we split up; Lucia went for an afternoon of spas, flotation tanks and massages while Skins and I had an afternoon on the Shotover river planned. 

The Shotover Jet, something we’d heard lots about, involved a jetboat hurtling at stupid speeds up and down the Shotover River through a very tiny canyon narrowly missing the river banks and protruding rocks on many occasions. While this was fun, it was nowhere near as exhilarating as the day before and not really as good value for money. It probably speaks volumes when I say the highlight of this trip was probably that the boat had heated handrails- how novel.

 Later in the afternoon we were bussed through the mountains to the start point of the white water rafting. The road we took was called Skippers Canyon Road which is world-renowned for being one of the most precarious roads in the world, and the guide at the front of the bus took great delight in reciting death statistics, pointing out the most accident prone corners, and generally making everyone feel uneasy throughout the duration of the trip. 

When we arrived at the top of the Shotover we got unpacked and jumped in the dinghy. Not only was this my first experience of white water rafting, but we were also fortunate enough to be doing it in the snow! Needless to say, it was cold and wet. The Shotover white water rafting is the most challenging commercially guided rapids there are in NZ with a few instances of grade four rapids. 

Much to our dismay, however, the river was quite tame on the day and neither of the three boats were flipped over or smashed against the rocks- all in all a bit tamer than we were hoping for but good fun nonetheless.

We came back to town to meet Lucia, who had been massaged, floated, spa-ed, and hit the road quickly on the way to Wanaka. We were hoping to get there in time to scoff a quick dinner down and go to a small boutique cinema. Unfortunately, the dinner took its time cooking and we missed the cinema, so went for a few drinks to plot the next couple of legs of our NZ adventure.