Another early start as we have pre-booked helicopter flights, again with bookme.com and are due to fly from Fox at 9.00. A totally different day today, no rain and the sun Is shining - big bonus! So back over the mountain to Fox via numerous hairpin bends and arrived at Mountain Helicopters at 08.45 to find that the other couple booked on our flight had not turned up and they would not fly unless they had a minimum of 3 passengers. They had a flight at 12.30 where 2 passengers had already confirmed so we agreed to go with that although it was back in Franz Josef. In the meantime we went down a narrow road which turned into a 14km single lane gravelled road up and over a hill to Gillespies Beach where the sea was pretty wild and churned up after yesterday's heavy rains. The sounds of the waves crashing was tremendous as we walked along the pebbly beach with loads of driftwood strewn about and had coffee in the motor home before making the return journey to Franz Josef in good time for the flight. We were escorted across the road to the helicopter after a safety briefing and were loaded and strapped into the rear seats and fitted with headphones. Once all were aboard we took off and quickly climbed over Franz Josef Glacier (over 10Km long) and it certainly looked much more impressive in the sun than the glacier we saw yesterday from the ground. We continued to climb and hover around the snow covered mountains for us to take photos and were soon facing Mount Cook and Mount Tasman the highest mountains in New Zealand which looked absolutely beautiful in the sunshine. We landed on a snowfield directly facing the two peaks where we were able to get out and walk in the snow and take loads more pictures, an incredible experience. Back into the helicopter, us in the front, we continued to hover around following the route of the rock covered Tasman Glacier and then down the Fox Glacier which looked totally different to when we saw it yesterday and as we came down quite quickly we both experienced severe ear pain which thankfully gradually receded as we levelled off to land. Another WOW WOW WOW moment and a very memorable experience! A quick lunch and then a walk up towards the Franz Josef Glacier although the walk was cut short as the pathway had been washed away in recent rain. It looked different from the ground and nowhere near as impressive. It was now mid afternoon and we decided to head north to find a site for the night and eventually found a turning off the main road towards the sea in an ecological area where we were able to park up, 50 metres from the beach and the only life in the vicinity were some Hereford cattle and lots of birds.
Distance travelled - 196 Km