I wish we had photos to share from the Jet Boat experience, but we were worried we might get a little wet and we were right. Our slightly unhinged but extremely likeable boat captain and tour guide Mark, took us on an exhilarating 40 minute ride down the Buller Gorge Canyon on the Murchison river. We did plenty of spins and it felt like we were dunked a few times. It was a hell-of-a-lota-fun!! Here’s there promotional video.

We stayed the night in Greymouth and slept as much as possible, still recovering from Abel Tasman. The next day we made our way to Franz Josef where we had much adventure planned. Starting with our quad bike adventure on our first night.

This is a glacier fed river.

We were led by our guide down an old glacial riverbed, winding around a small forest track and through knee deep mud puddles in our fun and funky all terrain vehicles. We stopped for a hot Milo and to admire the view of the glacier through the low lying clouds.

I was surprised at how difficult I found it to manoeuvre the quad bike. It had power steering, but it didn’t really feel like it to me. Mark didn’t have any problems though so maybe I just need to start lifting heavier weights.

I almost got bogged once, but put my foot down and she growled and grumbled out of the mud. Mark who was travelling behind me wasn’t so lucky. I’d made a nice big ditch for him and he had to be towed out of my mud hole. (hehe) Although I should mention that the reason he was travelling behind me was because for the prior 10 minutes the group had to keep stopping because I was too slow . I was just warming up though, by the end of the tour I didn’t think we were going fast enough. I got a few hand blisters, though I’m not complaining as every time I looked at the blister it made me smile and remember the fun journey we had.

Donna in the Forest

Donna on a Quad Bike

Mark rocking out on his Quad Bike

Mark with a Glacier

• Adventure
• Jet Boat
• New Zealand