The day started innocently enough, with a walk to buy some more sunblock. Then I checked in at the office of Kawaran Rafts where a bus was waiting to take us to the helipad. A small helicopter was being prepared – apparently ours was the first flight of the day into Skippers Canyon. I had been in a helicopter before – a large one in which I twice flew to offshore platforms in Brunei. But, as I soon found out, a small chopper is a totally different experience. I was sitting directly behind the pilot – it was noisy and it vibrated, and I somehow felt a lot more in contact with the surroundings. This was real “seat of the pants” flying. We flew low over the hills, and then along the Shotover River, which the pilot decided we should “shoot over” at a perilously low altitude.

Flying through a canyon in a helicopter isn’t the kind of thing most people do every day and the pilot clearly wanted to to make it memorable for us, so he threw the craft into a steep bank towards the end of the flight, and then we hurtled down to the bottom of the canyon and landed gently on a stony beach by the side of the fast flowing river. We hopped out, keeping our heads low since the rotors kept turning at the same speed. We had been told to walk forwards, in order to not be turned into slices of ham by the tail rotor. As soon as we were clear, the chopper took off and disappeared rapidly, leaving just the sound of the rushing water.

The next thrill ride didn’t take long to arrive. A jet boat had been whizzing down the river at terrifying speed as we’d landed, and soon an empty one came to pick us up. The shallow fast-flowing waters of the Shotover River looked barely navigable in a kayak, let alone in what amounted to a 6 person powerboat.

However, jet boats do not have a propellor in the water, or even a rudder, but instead suck water in through the hull and squirt it out of the stern in a high speed jet, which can be directed left or right in order to steer the craft. We were told that jet boats can reach speeds of nearly 100 km/h (65 mph) in water that is only 5 cm (2 inches) deep. This seemed hard to believe, but I kept an open mind since I was about to find out for myself…

We climbed aboard…

What followed was a much scarier experience than I’d expected even the bungy jump to be! We immediately accelerated to an unbelievable speed as we hurtled upstream. Initially the river was clear and winding, and our jetboat flew round the corners like a rally car. The driver was clearly an expert and was determined to prove it. Then we came to some rapids… with a large rock in the middle of the river…

There was a narrow gap on the left side of this rock and a wider gap on the right. We headed at full speed towards the narrow gap, the driver looking round at us to see what we thought, since it didn’t look navigable. We all looked terrified. At the last minute he swerved sharply and scarily to the right to take us to the wider right-hand gap. But the fun wasn’t over. In the very last second before reaching the rock, he swerved even more sharply to the left and took us through the narrow gap which led to a tortuous swerving route through more rocks before the river levelled off again. Blood drained from people’s faces, as the driver turned and smiled mischievously.

Just when things were quietening down, Skippers Bridge came in to view, and there was a sharp intake of breath when we realised we were expected to jump from all the way up there to all the way down here!

We disembarked a little downstream of the bridge, and started a long long climb up the path to the narrow Skippers road, and thus to the end of the bridge. From here it was horrifyingly obvious what we had to do, and how far down we were going to fall before decelerating. The one reassuring thing was that jumpers did not apparently come anywhere close to the river when jumping – there was a safety margin of 20 metres or more. It looked very well managed, and utterly hair-raising at the same time.

After each jump, the jumper was lowered to the river, into a jetboat which held position in the fast flowing shallow water, while an assistant held a pole up for the jumper to grab as he was slowly lowered.

We went up on to the bridge and had a closer look at the proceedings. After being weighed (to set the correct bungy length) each trembling victim would take the lonely one-way shuffle to the end of the plank, and would stand there, thinking Goodness knows what, while the onlookers counted down for the leap into the infinite void….

We all had to sign a waiver, which was written in a rather light hearted way.

Then, all too soon it was my turn. A towel (yes, just a regular blue bath-towel) was wrapped round my ankles, a rock-climbing sling (nylon webbing) was looped round a couple of times, and I was helped to a standing position. I hopped very carefully to the end of the platform (desperately trying not to fall off for some illogical reason!!) and then I was told to wave at the video camera which was recording everyone’s jump from a vantage point below and to the side of the bridge. I was tempted to look down, which apparently isn’t a good thing to do, so I was told to look straight forwards.

The onlookers all counted down enthusiastically. I felt nauseous with terror, and I knew that if they reached zero and I then paused, then I might not jump at all, so I jumped before they got to zero! For a couple of seconds nothing happened at all – no sensation, just weightless nothingness. Then an increasingly strong tug on my ankles and suddenly everything was upside down, the bridge was at my feet, then the river was off to one side, then the bridge was there instead… My foot was hurting a bit because one loop of the webbing seemed to have slipped round the side somehow. Finally there was a reassuring roar of a jetboat above my head and the motion slowly subsided as I was lowered down, to reach for the pole.

Finally I was lying in the back seat of the jet boat which then took me to the beach. I climbed back up the long steep path to the bridge where I discovered it was so much more fun to watch people jump, and do the countdown, when you’ve already jumped!

Chatting to my fellow jumpers about my experience, I remembered that the video camera had recorded my whole horrific ordeal for posterity… The tape would cost me 30 US dollars, but I might have to buy it…

Finally the last member of our group jumped and it was time for a newly confident (and rather relieved) band of of us Awesome Foursomers to pick our way down the path to the river, where a jet boat returned us at great speed to the beach / makeshift heliport, where our final thrill ride was waiting.

I had never been white-water rafting before, and this was a grade 4/5 (out of 5) but that apparently didn’t matter! The entertaining and good-humoured guide helped to kit us all out, and told us everything we needed to know.

As we paddled off down the slow moving initial section of the river the guide executed a cunning plan to get us all wet. He told us that as a team we needed to trust each other. He had us all sit around the edge of the raft (him included) holding hands to form a ring. We stood up and leaned out such that only the hands of the people either side kept each of us from toppling backwards into the river. The lesson was that everyone was dependent on everyone else, in order to stay in the raft. Then the guide suddenly let go of the 2 people either side of him, and we all fell backwards into the river! Except for him, of course…

The rapids suddenly started coming thick and fast. They all had names and some were a major thrill. Just at the end, when we were getting overconfident, we managed to get stuck at the last rapid, called Cascade. With the effort of freeing our raft, 2 people at the front ended up in a heap on the floor, and this hilarity was captured by the official photographer who was lurking nearby.

That was it! We had all survived the Shotover Assault, the Awesome Foursome. At the beach at Arthurs Point we were served a barbecue and relaxed in a jacuzzi. Back in Queenstown I was able to get the coveted Awesome Foursome T-shirt…

Having survived this, I’m thinking that tomorrow I will try jumping off a hill… safely attached to a paraglider of course.