Ice, Ice and More Ice, oh and Mountains too

Thursday 30th January

 

Well the train did come through at 6am, but thankfully it didn't blow its whistle. So after breakfast we left Hokitika and followed the coast road down to the start of the Southern Alps.  We started off driving through Cumbria and then Switzerland, or so it seemed, but just more of it.  

 

 

 

The scenary was spectacular and went on and on.  Everytime we came around a bend in the road, one of us would saw, wow or other such describing words.  We pottered through Ross, had lunch at Hari Hari and headed for the next town Whataroa.  It was then that we saw a signpost saying Helicopter Glacier flights. The van just turned right in, nothing to do with us.

 

 

At this point the skies were absolutely clear, so we decided to take the next flight which was for 40 minutes by helicopter through the snow fields to the Franz Joseph and the Fox Glaciers. We then set down in the snow on top for 10 minutes. We did it! We did it!

 

Don't know where to start with the photos as I took hundreds, here are just a few.

I can easily say that, apart from my wedding day of course, it is the most wonderfully thing I have ever done. I was dumbstruck ( I know!) with it all. It was so beautiful and so special, I can't stop thinking and remembering.

We went up with another couple Helen and Greg St Albans. I didn't want to leave. Needless to say I took a photo or two.

Leaving

Flying through the Glaciers

Franz Josef Glaciers

We landed

Coming Back

 

 

We came back

I was bouncing around with joy.... fabulous, wonderful, exciting, wanna do it again!

We found a small camp site in the centre of Franz Josef, five minutes walk into town. As it was Chinese new year, we decided to have a chinese which was followed by fireworks and some very dodgy fire eaters. You didn't want to stand too close, as they kept dropping the fire sticks every so often.

 

More tomorrow