Lots of Flying Contraptions

It seems like every time I write in this blog lately, I’ve gotten further and further behind and have loads to update everyone about. I’ve managed to write the beginning of an entry about the Milford Track but haven’t gotten much further than that since I’ve been keeping myself quite busy over the last few days (probably because I have less than a week left in New Zealand and I’m trying to fit in as much as possible on my way out). I promise I’ll describe it eventually as it was too amazing an experience to just leave out of my blog, but in the meantime, I’ll just have to direct you to my massive Milford track gallery (which is currently missing all of my shots from the top of Mackinnon Pass and all of day 4).

So, what have I been keeping myself busy with? Well, on Friday I headed back to Queenstown from Te Anau at the refreshing time of 7.30am. I did get to see a great sunrise over the hills around Te Anau, which slightly made up for having to walk to the bus stop in the dark. I didn’t do a whole lot in Queenstown besides eat another Fergburger (the Southern Swine–massive burger with bacon and avocado on top. Yummm…) and sort out the rest of my itinerary. Things didn’t quite go according to plan due to hostels being completely booked up, so I’m currently on Plan B, which has worked out just fine!

I spent the weekend in Wanaka and met up with James, the British guy that I seem to have run into in every city in New Zealand. He had backtracked to do a big canyoning trip for his birthday while I had gone back there for the Warbirds over Wanaka airshow. Saturday was pretty lazy, consisting mostly of us eating lots of food and wandering around the general Wanaka area. On Sunday we both went to the airshow, which I thought was quite good. There were planes in the air all day with no breaks in between, so we got to watch one trick after another until our eyes started blurring from staring into the sun too much. They even raced a Formula 3000 car against an aerobatic plane–the plane won the first time but the car got a better start the second time and won by a landslide. I felt like I was watching an episode of Top Gear! The Australians sent over some of their planes as well, one of which was the most impressive of the airshow–the F111 jet from Amberley in Brisbane. The commentators were pretty funny for the whole show, but I loved what they had to say about the Australian cargo jet–”This is used for delivering troops, munitions, and cans of XXXX worldwide.” The show ended with a great display of old warbirds doing a pretend dogfight to defend the airfield. Lots of low flyovers and lots of pyrotechnics, so I was happy. I’ve got some pictures of that, but haven’t had the time to resize them yet for uploading.

Totally random event that happened: James and I walked to the end of the field and then stood in the crowd watching some of the acrobatics when the person in front of me turned around and said, “Kristin?” It turned out that Tash and Luke–two of the people I met on the Copland Track–were standing right in front of us! It was pretty crazy considering there were probably 30,000 people at the airshow and we happened to walk up right behind them. It turns out they broke down on the way home from the Copland Track, which further adds to the hilarity/drama of the entire weekend (which you can read about in an earlier entry from the end of Feb). It was really good to see them though.

After the airshow, James and I went out to Treble Cone, the local ski area, to try to get some good views, but unfortunately it was closed for the weekend. We ended up driving the whole 50kms down the Matukituki valley–where Johanna and I went the last time I was in Wanaka–to see if we could get some good views of Mt. Aspiring and the park around it. We didn’t really, but it was still a great day and an enjoyable drive. Plus, we were treated to the vision of an older man standing naked in the river bathing himself. That was pleasant.

Today I took the long trip back up the West Coast, since Mt. Cook and its surrounds were completely booked up for the week. I’m in Franz Josef, which is where the photos in this entry are from (and by the way, I’ve managed to fix the annoying quirk that pushed all my pictures to the righthand side, so hopefully it looks slightly better formatted now). When I arrived in town around 4, there were still clouds pretty low over the glacier and mountain areas. However, after I watched the film “Flowing West,” which is a movie with helicopter footage of the west coast and the Southern Alps shown on an IMAX-style screen, I came out and there were only a few scattered clouds hanging onto the mountains; otherwise, it had completely cleared.

It was a beautiful day rarely seen on the West Coast, where it rains over 200 days a year, so I decided to make the most of it. Since I’m leaving New Zealand earlier than I expected, I had previously made the decision that I could splurge on one big activity that I wouldn’t have otherwise done…so I went on a 40 minute helicopter ride around Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers and Mount Cook/Aoraki, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. Even though it was the quickest I’ve spent a lot of money since I’ve been here, it was completely worth it. I don’t think you can get a better day for a helicopter flight–there were a few clouds around for effect, but otherwise it was all mountains, glaciers, and snow. We zoomed low over both glaciers and got incredibly close to the mountains–closer than I’ll ever be again to Mt. Cook, I’m sure, since I’m certainly not planning to climb it! Once we flew around Franz, Mt. Cook, and Mt. Tasman, we landed on Fox Glacier’s neve. I wasn’t completely prepared for the trip, since I booked it 5 minutes before the helicopter took off, so my toes got a bit cold in my flipflops when I stepped out onto the snow! I didn’t mind the cold, since we were only on the glacier for a bit less than 10 minutes, since I got to stand in a completely different part of the glacier than I did on my full day hike on Fox back in February. It was snowy with little ripples here and there and a couple large-ish looking crevasses, rather than large ice walls. It was white instead of the glacier’s characteristic blue color, since the ice was so buried, and it was easy to walk around without crampons on. The views were just amazing, especially since the sun was getting closer to the Tasman Sea so it was reflecting and generally just creating some cool lighting. Snow stretched as far as the eye could see, only broken by the chocolate brown mountains containing the glacier. I’ve again run out of adjectives to describe just how amazing the experience was; I think Eileen, a British lady on my flight, described it best when she said, “I’ll be dreaming about that wondering if I really did do it!” After we took off from Fox, we flew low and fast over the neve and then dipped down between the mountains and flew directly past the terminal face and river and then over the township of Fox and the mountains separating Fox & Franz before finally landing back at the helipad. If it wasn’t so expensive, I would have stayed on the copter and asked for another go-around!

It’s time for me to cook dinner and get ready for another early start in the morning, so enjoy the pictures and I’ll try to update again soon!