Video from one of the landing sites:
Video of one of the glaciers...and what appears to be flying within a few feet of the peaks. It doesn't just appear that way...we were that close! Be sure to watch this one...it's really cool.
So after a great morning on the helicopter and a good lunch with some new friends from Wash DC that were on the helicopter with me and can be seen in the front seat in one of the videos (a shout out to Christian and Annabelle!), I decided to give the jet-boating a try. WOW! (I know I'm overusing that word, but what else can I say?) The concept of jet-boating on a river is that the water is too shallow (just a few inches deep at some points) for a regular motor so they tack two jet engines onto the boat!
Each has 520hp and can propel the boat to 80 km/h in seconds (about 50 mph). In an open ocean or lake, 50 mph is not that exciting, but when you're in a canyon with sheer rock faces on either side, in a few inches of water, making precision turns to avoid the rocks, and the driver of the boat definitely has a screw-loose, it's fantastic! At times, the boat was within 2-3 inches of the rock walls of the canyon (that's not an exaggeration!) and it's not like we're floating up to these rock walls, but flying towards them at top speed making a turn just moments before crashing into the wall!
And to top things off, they decide it would be fun to throw in a few 360° turns at high speeds! I asked our driver if he had ever hit a canyon wall and his response was "once...only once!" I think I should be thankful he didn't expand on that.
We weren't allowed to take our cameras onto the boat (which was a good thing because it would have gotten drenched), but they did have a video camera on the front of the boat and recorded 3 minutes of the ride. Of course, I bought it for a ridiculous price along with some pictures which I will try to post later when I get a chance to download off the CD and upload onto the web. For now, here's a short video of the group after us.
As you'll see, the boat will go in between the rock walls and it will appear that he's only inches away from both sides of the wall...it's not an illusion, he actually is only inches away...on BOTH sides!
Afterwards I grabbed dinner with Christian and Annabelle and then played a little blackjack with them at a tiny little casino on the wharf (Christian - stay away from the PP...you can't win buddy!!) I lost about $1,000 US in a very short period of time, but thankfully I'm still up after the winnings in Singapore!
The next morning it was back to the airport for my return flight into Auckland in order to link into my "RTW" ticket to Sydney. Great weather so far and looking forward to a little relaxation (yes, I said relaxation - hopping on a plane every other day is exhausting!)
6 full days in Sydney and then to Thailand for 11 days. I'm thinking 4-5 days in Bangkok and then 4-5 days in Phuket, but if anyone has other suggestions as to where I should go in Thailand, please let me know.
Thanks for following along - I know this was a long one!
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Location:Queenstown, NZ
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