Thursday, January 16, 2014

Day 8, Mt Cook > Christchurch, January 17th 2014

Last day in New Zealand today, we fly out at some ungodly hour in the morning in order to make our connector to Tamworth. Very bad planning. We woke up to what the locals were calling a perfect day at Mount Cook, the view looked amazing with the dawn colours enhancing the snowy peaks.
We were booked in for a helitour at 9am so we had an hour or so to kill, we had a look around the Hooker Valley and the Tasman Valley, you really need a good camera to take pics here, the extreme light of the sky and dark of the shadows and the brightness of the snow gives the auto focus a workout.
We arrived at the heli joint a little early too so we just stood around taking more pictures before the safety brief and away we went.
We climbed higher, and higher (850mtr > 3700mtr) until we finally landed up on a mountain opposite Mt Cook, the views were exceptional but at about -10C and windy we didn’t hang around for a long time.
We jumped back on board and headed west towards the top of the Franz Joseph glazier. We were supposed to land there but the wind was all over the place and the helicopter was bouncing around like a cork in washing machine. Jodi and I both liked the thrill but the pommy chick sitting next to Jodi starting praying and the other two passengers were not much keener to stay on the west side so the pilot made a judgement call and we pushed quickly back to the east side of the range where the wind was more predictable.
The view of the river and lake on the way back to the helipad was amazing.
Here’s a quick roadside pic of Lake Tekapu, the country along the ranges has a postcard opportunity around every corner.
I was meeting up with a flour mill owner at Timaru but got a bit side tracked at some Taxidermy shop along the way.
After the flour mill we took the scenic route to Christchurch, big mistake, too long, too tied and too many road works. Anyway, that’s day seven done. See you in sunny gunny tomorrow afternoon. Stu

1 comment:

  1. Great pics, spectacular scenery, jealous much!
    Hug that awesome wife of yours for me :-)
    Peg in Armidale

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