BTDU

Across the road from our campsite there is a recently built DoC centre which provides a lot of info of how Franz Josef developed into the tourist hub it now is and how much of a lure the number of substantial glaciers has been

With the weather looking good and the tops free of mist…

…we reckoned we couldn’t miss the opportunity to get up close and personal with the glaciers, so activated our provisional booking.

After a short safety briefing from our guide we were mini-bussed to our start point with 3 other explorers; better now to let the following chronological images tell the story😊

So that was a double first for us both, since neither of us had ever flown in a chopper before, so to get a full hour and 2 glacier landings made it a very memorable inauguration…and something I’d personally always wanted to do as a fan of the TV series Whirlybirds 😉🚁🚁

The weather in the mountains changes rapidly and 20 minutes after our landing on the first glacier our pilot told us that area was now covered in mist, so no longer a landing point.

I found the whole experience kind of surreal since, with headphones on, it was very peaceful and with little sense of real movement, almost as though we were cycling along above, and frequently very close to, the rugged mountain tops

Most definitely something we’d both like to do again and, were we ever to win the lottery….😉🚁

So after that first the prospect of getting our laundry done in the 20C afternoon didn’t seem a chore as we planned the last couple of days’ routes back to Christchurch .

As for Rabbie Burns we weren’t able to source any haggis or neeps so I addressed the fillet steak salad then Julie sang Auld Lang Syne to the original melody😊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 👼🏽

What a day…..