Shotover River Whitewater Rafting Adventure

• As the supplier is a vaccinated site, all our visitors (aged 12 years, 3 months +) will need to show their Ministry of Health issued My Vaccine Pass. Your pass will be scanned by one the team – please have a digital or physical copy ready for this upon arrival.

• All visitors must continue to scan in using the Covid Tracer app or register their visit in writing at the entry point.

• If you are unwell, please stay at home and call Healthline if you’re experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms. Please continue good hygiene practices when visiting – sanitiser is available throughout the experiences.

• During the Covid-19 restrictions, while mask wearing is mandatory, the supplier will be replacing this requirement with the wearing of buff style face covering as they are more practical for this activity than masks, or if normal style mask then it will need to be tucked inside wetsuit.

Bring a swimsuit and towel. Anything valuable should be left behind at your accommodation.

You must be water confident and able to swim on this trip. By ‘water confident’ we mean you won’t be daunted by the river movement. Imagine being in the sea with medium waves round you where you can’t stand up and are tossed around a bit. If you feel comfortable with this then you should be ok whitewater rafting on the Shotover River.

Yes you can, however we do recommend a sports strap or tie for glasses. Once again remember we can’t guarantee the safety of your glasses so if you can do without them then do so.

Yes, there is a café and bar at the rafting base. There are also toilets at the rafting base and also at Deep Creek where the raft trip starts on the Shotover River.

As well as the scenery, there are a few differences between the rivers such as the grade/ranking of difficulty of rapids, the number of rapids rafted on the river and the swimming ability needed by rafters.

Shotover River – Grades 3-5 which means it’s more exciting to raft and harder to navigate. There is a higher risk of falling out the boat. The river has more rapids than the Kawarau – including a section where you raft 170m through the Oxenbridge tunnel. You must be able to swim on this river. The road to the Shotover River is via Skippers Canyon – a narrow dirt track road that hugs the sheer cliff face of the canyon.

Kawarau River –Grades 2-3 (however occasionally Grade 2-4 at higher water levels), which means it’s easier to navigate with low risk of falling out of the raft. There are flat stretches of river between the rapids which means there’s a chance of some water fight action. There’s an opportunity to race your friends on the other rafts or jump out and swim in the flat water between the rapids. The Kawarau River is a much deeper and bigger river and flows through some spectacular Central Otago vineyards. The trip ends with a 400 metre long, Grade 3 rapid.

Don't worry about getting you shoes wet, we provide wetsuit booties so you can wear your normal shoes to get to the rafting base.

The rafts are large enough to carry six or seven people plus your rafting guide. If you’re travelling with friends or in a group, we can generally organise it so that you are together in the same raft.

Generally, the Shotover River trip can be between 1½ to 2½ hours on the water

Shotover River – The drive to the start point on the river is via Skippers Canyon and takes about 40 minutes – you then raft back to the base.

This depends on the river levels but there’s always a chance that you may fall out of the raft. The guides are trained to deal with this. Every Shotover River trip (and Kawarau in high water levels) has a safety kayaker. There is a full safety briefing before you commence your rafting trip explaining what to do.

Yes. Every raft has a qualified and certified rafting guide in it. They control when and how you paddle giving directions throughout the raft trip.

The changing rooms have cubby holes available to put your clothes in. A communal locked locker is available for valuables.