Glaciers & Helicopter snow landing

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Geo: -43.3891, 170.182

Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers were amazing, the glaciers aren't far from each other and Mount Cook sits behind them from here. The first morning we book a helicopter flight to view the glaciers and even have a snow landing! They took our details including weight, which I guess was to balance things out, but I was really quite a bit nervous about the flight, thankfully I had no time to think about it as we just had time to grab our jackets then we were off to the airstrip.

I didn't realise it at the time but there was a plane crash at this airstrip just a few days beforehand killing all 6 on board, I heard about it on the news but hadn't made the connection with this part of the island until now. The airstrip was closed and has just reopened now, we're the first flight out! I was nervous enough beforehand so fingers crossed!

I had no need to worry, the split second we took off I loved it ... The whole sensation of it and the magnificent views, dispelled any fear I had, and I would have had my head out the window of the helicopter if only the window opened! It really was incredible heading up and over both Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and stopping near the top for our 'snow landing'. Amazing, but freezing, so its a quick few snaps then we head back in😉. You can see the whole route from glacier, to river, to the sea from up here, wow!

After our amazing helicopter ride I dragged Raymie out to the bases of the glaciers, they are such an amazing colour, they are really impressive. Next day we head out to mirror lake where we got a great view of Mount Cook and enjoyed a walk around. Didn't hang around too long before driving down past Lake Wanaka and all the way to Queenstown, which was a really scenic drive, lovely.

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