Animated Wakatipu trip through time

Queenstown visitors and locals can now experience the adventure capital of the world 90 million years ago — via virtual reality.

The resort’s latest tourist attraction opened this week; a guided animation of the past including dinosaurs and an insight into a frozen Wakatipu.

It’s operated in conjunction with KJet, and is housed in the underwater observatory on the pier beside Queenstown Bay.

It is the brainchild of Ian Taylor, founder of the Dunedin computer graphics company Animation Research Limited.

He said the idea of adding a time-travelling video experience came to him 12 months ago when he was standing on the jetty looking at the fish.

"We’ve had these 70million-year-old fossils of underwater dinosaurs being found in Otago so I thought it would be great to tell the story about the oceans, Queenstown and New Zealand from back then to the present day."

Mr Taylor said he gave his team of computer graphic artists a one-page outline back in February and it was fascinating to see the finished product.

KJet co-owner Shaun Kelly confirmed the new venture had created two jobs and said more could follow.

It opened on Monday and had already attracted "hundreds" of visitors.

The original observatory opened in 1983 and thousands of tourists have watched salmon, trout, eels and ducks in their underwater environment.

Mr Kelly said the new attraction takes things to a new level. They can now view dinosaurs prowling around the Wakatipu basin 90 million years ago.

"This is really unique. We are really excited about the project."

He confirmed they were still putting some final touches to the video elements but hoped it would become an attraction in its own right — aside from the jet-boat operation.

This week the time-travelling video experience has been running as part of the jet-boat tour.

KJet’s intention is that the animated trip through time will be run hourly.