Heli-hiking and west coast driving

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After we left Queenstown we headed towards Wanaka, where we would stay for one night on our way out to the West Coast. Not much happened here, we went for a nice drive around the lake yet more lovely scenery of mountains reflecting in the lake. We also visited Puzzling World - a mini amusent park for puzzles including a 3D maze.

The following day we finally arrived on the West Coast taking the Haast pass and arriving at the "town" of Haast, which sits along the Haast river. As you may guess some guy called Juliust von Haast got a little greedy a couple of hundred years back and basically named everthing in the area he hadn't seen before after himself! Also calling the place a town is going a bit far, as it is made up of 4 motels and a campsite, with one bar.

The next day we drove the shot, but windy drive up the coast to the glacier region. New Zealand has 2 glaciers, that both along with only one other in the world, very famous as they run all the way down to sea level making them very accessible. We arrived at Fox Glacier (also named by Haast) in mirky cloudy weather, but as we started to drive up towards it, the clouds were beginning to clear at low level, and we could see the enormous ice river towering over us. We went for a short walk at the forefront of the glacier, and then carried an extra 30 mins by car to Franz Joseph which has an equally impressive glacier. The hostel we were staying in there was one of the best rated YHAs in NZ, so we really enjoyed a little bit more luxury with comfy sofas, sky, an almost hotel quality room and a lovely kitchen.

We got up early the next day and headed the short walk into town to check in for our Heli-hike (does what it says on the tin), and within 30 mins we were being shuffled aboard a helicopter. Thank goodness the weather was gloriously clear and sunny! The 10 min flight up to the glacier was stunning. We flew up over the town and along the glacier all the way up to the summit, with views out over snow capped Southern Alps and then back down to a about 2/3rds of the way up the glacier (the most stable part) for an ice landing. As we got out out of the chopper, it seems silly to think that we were surprised just how smooth the ice is and quite slippery (from the air it looks like snow!). As soon as the helicopter cleared out, we were left in the quiet tranquility of the mountain. We put on our crampons and suddenly walking became easy again! So off we went on a 2 hour hike on the glacier. Walking through ice arches, sliding down ice slides created by melting ice all in all just taking the amazing beauty of the place.The ice shines a topaz blue as the sun is refracted off the ice, giving a beautifully eerie feeling. It's amazing to think that to the guides who walk on the glacier day in day out never encounter the same places the next day. The ice moving and melting constantly so that formations change and new ones are created, but when you are on it yourselft there is absolutely no sense of movement, other than the occasional drip of melting ice. When we started heading back to the make shift heli-pad it all seemed over too soon, it is truly such a unique place. But alas the heli was waiting and we jumped on our ride back to town.

We grabbed a bit of lunch and went for a walk in the afternoon over to the glacier path to get some more photos from the ground. We didn't stay too long as Chris was slowly developing man flu and retreated to bed for a late afternoon nap. After much coughing, spluttering and according to Yasi.. moaning (Chris fervently denies this though!!) he managed to sleep very little. Although by the next day seemed to be over the worst of it, and the journey continued up the west coast to Punakaiki.

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