April 27, 2025
We went for a hike along the Shotover River with our brother-in-law, Bill. The river gets its name from one of the early European settlers, William Gilbert Rees, who named it after his business partner’s English estate, Shotover Park. It has a particularly beautiful Maori name, Kimi-akau, which translates as “looking for the coast”. During the New Zealand gold rush in the 1860s, the Shotover was one of the richest gold-bearing rivers in the world. These days, it continues to provide riches but now they are in the form of tourist dollars, paid to the operators of the bright red jetboats that fly up and down the narrow and shallow river. These very fast and agile boats are propelled by a jet of water that is ejected through the back of the boat. Because there are no propellers, the boats can operate in very shallow waters. Fun fact: the first modern jetboat was developed by New Zealand engineer, Sir William Hamilton in the mid 1950s.
Mal and Lauren 