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While in New Zealand recently, I took a jet boat ride up the Matukituki River, which feeds glacial water and snow runoff into Lake Wanaka.

Trouble was, I didn't come back! Not on the jet boat anyway. Its fuel pump failed at the furtherest point away from our departure point. The driver and co-driver had to jump into the river (shallow, but freezing) to pull the boat and the six fare-paying passengers onto the river bank. I must say that they handled the whole thing really well - no-one felt in danger and none of the passengers even got wet. Here's the non-functioning boat after we all disembarked.


So how did we get out? Helicopter, of course!


All of that story was so that I could show you this image of the Upper Matukituki that I took from the helicopter as we were taking off. It has been HDRd.

Trevor,

Fuel pump? I'd be willing to wager it was a sad case of wet ignition.

Still, it gave you some great opportunities to do something a little bit different. Well captured.

Great deat I think. Two rides for the price of one.

That last image was worth it all!! It would suck to be the jet boat operators though

A great and very accessible place, the Matukituki Valley. Only four hours to walk in to a 24-bed hut so you can always walk out again if there's no room. The hut is beside a patch of temperate rain forest with a clear view to Mount Aspiring. The four hour side trip (from the carpark) to the Rob Roy Glacier is good too.

I've also seen the Matukituki Valley from above, from a saddle at the top, a side trip from the Rees-Dart trail (again well worth doing). The one thing I found hard to credit was the people walking up or down a precarious track effectively up a cliff from the valley bottom to that saddle.