Bungy & Jet Boating
New Zealand invented commercial bungy, and it has never really calmed down since.
Commercial bungy jumping was born in New Zealand in 1988 and the country has spent the decades since inventing increasingly elaborate ways to drop, fling and blast people through canyons. Most of it is concentrated around Queenstown, and all of it is run under a strict national adventure-activity safety regime.
The three Queenstown bungies
The Kawarau Bridge Bungy is the original — 43 metres from an 1880 gold-rush bridge, and the only one where you can choose to be dipped in the river. It is the shortest of the three and the one with the history.
The Nevis Bungy is 134 metres from a pod slung on cables above a river gorge, with 8.5 seconds of freefall. It is the largest in New Zealand and reached by a 4WD ride across private farmland.
The Ledge sits 400 metres above Queenstown at the top of the gondola, at only 47 metres of drop but with the whole town beneath you — and it runs after dark.
Jet boating
The jet boat is a New Zealand invention: Bill Hamilton developed it in the 1950s to run the shallow braided rivers of Canterbury, using a pump rather than a propeller so it draws only centimetres of water.
The Shotover Jet is the famous one, threading canyon walls at up to 85km/h with full 360-degree spins. The Dart River and Huka Falls jets are gentler on the nerves and better on the scenery.
Everything else they have thought of
The Nevis Swing is the world's largest, a 300-metre arc across the canyon at 120km/h. Canyon Swing at Shotover offers a dozen different release styles including being tipped off a chair backwards.
Skydiving operates over Queenstown, Wanaka, Lake Taupō, Franz Josef and the Bay of Islands. Taupō is generally the cheapest in the country and drops you over a volcanic lake.
Header photograph by Aenneken via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY / CC BY-SA.