Glacierland

Our aim today was to get as close to the glaciers as possible. The idea was actually to do a heli-hike, which involves flying up onto the glacier and doing a couple hour hike on it, viewing the crevasses, beautiful coloured ice and other amazing things on the glacier. Well it turns out that it was stretching the budget a little. Celia said that I should go and she would hang around till I came back, and we went to and fro with many option until we finally decided that we would both do a 20 minute helicopter flight over the peaks of Mount Cook and the Fox glacier.

Now Fox glacier falls 2,600m on its 13km journey from the Southern Alps down to the coast, and although it's been retreating for most of the last 100 years, it has been advancing since 1985 at an average of about a meter a day. This is really awesome because I thought all glaciers were getting smaller :)

The flight was really special because neither Celia nor me had ever been in a helicopter. Its a weird feeling the way it just lifts up and you can see right below in the bubble. Soon enough we had come right over the glacier and were snapping away madly at the amazing sights ahead. I had no idea how high up we actually were until we saw a mountain buck running around which I had to strain to see it was so small. This really put into perspective how big the glacier actually is. By the time our time was up and we had all the shots we needed I think we were both happy to be on the ground as all those 360deg turns in the helicopter had left us both a bit queasy.

We continued that evening up to Westport along the famous west coastal drive, turning down the option to drive through Arthur's Pass, and pitched the tent for the night