If there’s one thing I love most about Kiwis it’s their creativity and craziness when it comes to inventing cool adventure activities. I can remember being on the beach of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown in March watching Jordan on the Flyboard when all of a sudden an object caught my attention from the corner of my eye. It took a few minutes to figure out what it was, but in my head I thought to myself “Is that a giant shark??”
I watched as it sped around the lake, diving under the water and leaping into the air and thought – I gotta find out what that is and we HAVE to do that!
Sure enough after some research we learned it was a Seabreacher X – the shark edition of kiwi Rob Innes’s submersible personal watercraft invention. The world’s first commercial operation, Hydro Attack is one of Queenstown’s newest adventure activities and one of our first stops during our weekend roadtrip to Queenstown and Wanaka area.
With my life jacket on and ear muffs in position (to muffle to noise from the engine), I hopped in the giant shark and headed out into the middle of Lake Wakatipu. A leisurely drive while we passed the dock and shoreline, as soon as we hit open water this beast was kicked into gear!!
Rocketing at nearly 80km/hr this roboshark felt like a twisted union of a marine mammal and a high performance figher jet!! Originally designed to imitate a dolphin’s movement, it curved left and right making 360 degree donuts on it’s side.
The best part of the ride though was definitely submerging!! As the driver threw down the nose, diving nearly 2 meters below the surface, the sky disappeared for just a few moments before a sudden breach, launching the entire 18ft vessel into the air!!
Seriously I could have spent all afternoon doing that! It’s really hard to describe the feeling but it was definitely one of the coolest rides I’ve ever experienced. I REALLY would have loved to give it a go myself, but watching how many peddles and joy sticks the driver was using it would definitely require a little training first. I’m not going to lie though, if I won the lottery tomorrow, this would definitely be my new toy!!
And what better way to cap off the adventure than to finish it with a SHARK RACE?? (ps. my shark won!)
Would you take on an 18ft shark? How wild of a ride could you handle?
Ha, I only learned about Hydro Attack recently and randomly, and couldn’t believe it! Only in NZ…
Yeah it’s pretty awesome! And not surprised it was a Kiwi that invented it 🙂