Skippers Canyon Tour and Jet Boat | Queenstown

In early November we spent two days in Queenstown and booked a jet boat ride and canyon tour with Skippers Canyon Jet. I knew we were up for an interesting drive when their website stated that Skippers Canyon should not be self-driven unless you know the road well. Which is why they also include a very informative bus transfer in and out of the canyon. Our Skippers Canyon tour was one of the most terrifying New Zealand dirt roads I have ever been a passenger on. Skippers road is definitely on my list of ‘Top 5 Daunting Drives’ if I’m including the back roads I’ve travelled in the most secluded areas of Albania and Montenegro.

Skippers Canyon tour and Jet Boat has been running for over 15 years, the canyon tour takes you through a section of land which is rich with gold mining history dating back to the late 1800’s. The business is owned and operated by the 5th generation of family directly descended from the first miners who settled in Skippers Canyon during the gold rush era. Even today locals still head to this location to pan for gold, a frequent visitor to Skippers Canyon can usually be seen selling his gold haul at the Queenstown Markets on the waterfront each weekend.

The drive through this South Island canyon is not for the faint hearted though, it’s not everyday you get to look out your bus window and see a drop of several hundred metres to a very rocky river below. This jet boat experience definitely isn’t suitable for anyone with a crippling fear of heights, but if this sounds a bit like you with a fun jet boat experience in between then keep reading.

History of Skippers Canyon

Skippers Canyon is the largest road in New Zealand where rental vehicle insurance is not honoured. The 22-kilometre-long dirt road winds through the historic Skippers canyon, balancing on the edge of cliffs with Shotover River flowing hundreds of metres below the roads edge.

Skippers Canyon is 12 kilometres north of Queenstown, sitting beside the Coronet Peak ski field. Previously a popular gold mining area, Skippers Canyon is now a daily tourist attraction. A well sought-after location for photographers, adventurers, or Mission Impossible fans; as this was the location where Tom Cruise personally flew his helicopter through for a scene of Mission Impossible – Fallout.

The area, including the road which runs through the canyon, was named after Malcolm ‘Skipper’ Duncan. Malcolm Duncan discovered gold in one of the canyons creeks during the gold rush, subsequently having a generous amount of land named after him. Skippers road which travels through the canyon was built to service the booming gold mining industry during the late 1800s, however the road was completed just in time for the gold rush to end, 22 years later.

The road took so long to build because, well, it’s in a canyon. It can’t be easy carving out roads from cliff faces without the fear of falling to your death. Small explosives we used to blow out portions of the road, and even 120 years later the small holes where these explosives were placed can still be seen.

Throughout the Skippers Canyon tour you will see several houses dotted throughout the canyon sitting just above the river, as well as the remains of an old hotel which use to draw in the mining punters. This hotel was one of the main causes for a lot of marriages in the area during the late 1800’s. Young females would come from around the regions to work in the hotel, and would be swept off their feet by a miner and subsequently find themselves a husband. The turn over rate for female staff was so bad that the hotel manager sent out letters to the neighbouring towns asking for less attractive female staff, this however did not work.

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Skippers Canyon Tour and Jet Boat Experience

Adult: $159
Child: $85
Family (Two adults, one child): $318

Time Needed: 3hr return trip from Queenstown

Our Skippers Canyon tour began in Queenstown before making the ascent to Arthurs Point. Willie our bus driver was so kind to advise that even though the bus had seat belts, not using them was a safer option when in the canyon. We stopped at the lookout on the corner of Coronet Peak Road and Skippers Road for a photo opportunity and a history lesson before entering Skippers Canyon. The land below the lookout, which includes Queenstown, Frankton and Arthurs Point, formed a lake millions of years ago. With the surrounding mountains and Kawarau/The Remarkables forming the basin of the lake.

Entering the canyon I was unlucky enough to be welcomed in with the views of the road side disappearing away right below my window. The right side of the bus is not the place to sit if heights are a trigger for a soiled bus seat. I’ve never seen my husband as nervous as he was when the bus driver explained that a certain section of the road was new because the old section just one day “fell off”. HOW does a piece of road just ‘fall off’??

You may think that because Skippers road is quite narrow and one side falls in an abyss of rock and water, that this is a one way road and you exit safely out the other side to civilization and sealed wide roads. This is where you are wrong. There were three separate occasions where our driver had to maneuver to the side to allow another car to pass. I could see the headlines flash before my eyes “Queenstown Tour Bus Falls in Ravine”

Further information for Skippers Canyon Jet can be found here.

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What to Expect During Skippers Jet Boat Experience

Skippers Jet Boat is one of many jet boating experiences in Queenstown. The most popular and well known jet boat ride is the Shotover Jet further down the Shotover river. K Jet is another Queenstown based company which operates on Lake Wakatipu on Queenstown’s lakefront, perfect for those people that want the speed and spins, but none of the close calls with rocky hazards.

Skippers Jet run their two jet boats from the Shotover River in Skippers Canyon, from a location about 8.6kms into the canyon from the intersection with Coronet Peak Rd. Skippers Jet has been running for 15 years so they know the river like the back of their hand, and the drivers get pretty close to some of the rocky cliff faces. Each boat holds about 12 people including the driver and can take anyone over a metre tall.

The Skippers Jet boating experience was pretty cool. We were driven several kilometres up the Shotover River, reaching above speeds of 80kms with several 360 degree spins thrown into the mix. Coming extremely close to cliff faces and discarded metal contraptions left over from the gold mining era. We didn’t get soaked during our ride but my face definitely received a descent spray of fresh water straight from the river.

After our ride we were then driven 5 minutes further north into the canyon to Skippers bridge where their jet boat base lies. This is where you can purchase your photos and videos of the experience and have a short lunch break. Our drive out of the canyon was just as terrifying, this time Paul immersed himself in his phone to try and block out deep ravine sitting below our bus route.

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Places to Check out in Queenstown

After an afternoon or the morning like you would have just had; speeding up your metabolism because of your increased adrenaline, you’re no doubt going to want something hearty to eat and drink. And maybe something to calm your nerves. Ferg Burger is the typical go-to for anyone visiting Queenstown. The burgers are enormous and enough to fill the emptiest of stomachs. After that you can roll yourself down to the waterfront where you can enjoy a beverage or two overlooking the lake. If you come at the right time of year you could even enjoy a warm mulled wine, which is definitely my choice of drink during the colder month.

Our Skippers Canyon tour was an awesome way to spend an afternoon in Queenstown, and a great way to get my heart rate up without doing any exercise… Again, I would not recommend this tour for anyone who cannot handle heights as there are areas of the canyon which had a few people on the bus refusing to look out the window.

There is so much more to explore in the South Island, so please don’t just restrict yourself to checking out Queenstown and all the immediate towns around it. The snow on the Remarkables might be amazing but so is the glacier at Franz Josef, or the walking track at Mt Cook. I have plenty of road trip itineraries for places like the west coast; driving from Wanaka to Franz Josef, or even a 10 day road trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound and back through to Wanaka!