I found Queenstown's best thrills in 2 hours

They don't call Queenstown "the adventure capital of the world" for no reason.

Coming to Queenstown without skipping at least a heartbeat in some version of mild to genuine terror is like going to Egypt and missing the pyramids.

On the 20-minute drive from Queenstown to Oxbow Adventure Co I pass several wineries in the Gibbston Valley, home to some of the world’s most awarded pinot noirs. Don’t the people look content there: quaffing wine, nibbling cheese, ordering charcuterie boards to graze on out on patios beneath mountains.

If I was driving, I might change today’s plans and pull into one and grab myself a table. But I’m not, and so I can’t. Instead, I’m off to the antithesis of these fine establishments; it’s hard to sit and smell the roses when you’re travelling at 4Gs of G-force.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world. For more than 60 years it has been a magnet for every crazed adventure entrepreneur who ever thought up a way to scare the bejesus out of us to make money. Coming to Queenstown without skipping at least a heartbeat in some version of mild to genuine terror is like going to Egypt and missing the pyramids.

Oxbow Adventure Co epitomises this. It has three adventure activities on-site, two of which you won’t find the likes of anywhere else. I pull into its carpark and hear an almighty roar. I’m the last person on earth to be impressed by horsepower, but this is something else. A four-seater jet-sprint boat hits 100kmh in 2.5 seconds on a custom-built course in front of me and I feel the surge of it through my body.

There are jet boat operators all over Queenstown. It’s where the first commercial jet boat operation started, 63 years ago. But this isn’t jet boating like you and I know jet boating. Forget the 360-degree spins you’ve done at 50kmh, today I’m strapped into a seat with a full-face helmet.

When my driver accelerates I’m thrown back into my seat with four G-forces. I can’t even turn my head. “This is next level jet boating,” my driver had warned me. “There’s 620 horsepower in this engine. That’s the same as a stunt plane.”

A four-seater jet-sprint boat hits 100kmh in 2.5 seconds on a custom-built course.

My terror turns to high-octane euphoria. I can’t turn my head to see where the laughter is coming from … then I realise it’s me.

The next activity provides more of the same: my normally finetuned sense of terror is rendered useless by absurdity. I’m strapped into an off-road 4WD vehicle – designed by a New Zealand 4x4 champion driver – on an off-road track. The first obstacle we hit is a cliff drop of unfathomable size and sheer angle, but the four-wheel drive, four-wheel steer and 35cm of give in the shock absorbers allows us safe passage. Mud flies as we climb rock ledges and boulders, and fall down steep rock gullies.

The last activity seems more pedestrian, but once I’m holding a fully loaded 12-gauge shotgun in my hands, I’m shaking at the thought of it. There’s room for six at the clay bird shooting range. “Whatever you see, you can shoot,” my instructor tells me. I shoot at clay birds and runaway rabbits (no, not real ones) like I’m Dirty Harry.

I’m here two hours all up. By the end I’m buzzing with so much adrenaline I could jump off the tallest bridge in these bungy-jumping parts without a cord attached. But I resist, instead I find a winery on the way home.

The writer was a guest of Destination Queenstown and Virgin Australia.

Originally published as I found Queenstown's best thrills in 2 hours