Jetboating & Drybread

Jetboating

We had it in our head that we should do some activities in Queenstown this trip.  Over recent years, prices gone crazily high due to the tourist boom.  Kim saw a special for jetboating and gave them a call.

K-jet’s one hour jetboat ride was normally priced at $135 per person.  They were running specials at $89 through their website or $69 on a special with a voucher.  Kim gave them a call and got a special rate for us at $59 per head!

We walked downtown mid-morning with a detour through the Queenstown Gardens for the 1100 jetboat ride.  I had never been in a jetboat before.  Most tourists have done the Shotover Jet, the original famous ride through the gorges of the Shotover River.  But I’m not into speed so I never bothered in my 30+ years in New Zealand.

Kim, Jo, Greg and I took up a row on the boat.  We avoided the last row as that’s the wettest row, we were told.  We held on to the heated handrails on this cold day as we sped away on Lake Wakatipu.

Our captain, Ethan, did some 360 degree spins on the lake before going into the Kawarau River and then the Shotover River.  At various points, he did more spins.  To my surprise, they weren’t scary at all for me.

The “scary” moments, if you like, came from cleverly-manouvered near-misses with obstacles such as bridge pylons, trees in the lake etc.  I had great confidence in him and only let out one gasp.

For someone that doesn’t like speed, I didn’t find the jetboat ride scary or even thrilling.  I’d probably describe it more as fun.

After that ride in chilly conditions, we were all so ready for a hot meal.  We went to Ferg Burger, a burger joint that normally has an extremely long queue.  In the current post-Covid environment, it was only a brief wait for our gourmet burger.  Jo bought some chips as well and chips have never tasted so good before because I was so cold.

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Visiting friends

In the afternoon we met Kim’s friends Scott and Sue for afternoon tea in Cromwell before heading to Drybread for dinner with Jo’s friends, Ash and Jacqui.

Drybread was a mining town that’s now abandoned.  It now has a population of two and they were hosting us for dinner.  These former Aucklanders moved down here a number of years ago and are adapting to rural life.  Apart from their interest in photography, painting and a day job teaching (for Jacqui), they are learning to make wine.

They are very artistic and have fashioned the walkway to their house from a railway track complete with sleepers and a railway crossing alarm bells!

Being Central Otago, dinner was lamb!  It was perfectly roasted and then warmed up with a mushroom sauce.

Drybread’s mudbrick pub.

Ash & Jacqui’s home with a railway track walkway.