Today I took my first helicopter ride. My brother and I and the dogs flew around the 70,000 hectares, Mount Cook National Park. For the last three weeks there has been bad weather here. Again, like te sky dive we were blessed with azure blue skies, sparse cloud cover, a high sun and minimum wind. The park consists of 140 peaks over 2,100m, 22 over 3,000 and the centre piece: an impressive 3695 Aoraki Mount Cook. The direct translation in Mauroi being "Cloud Piercer". Fortunately, we also got to see very clearly 3 captivating glaciers: (1) Franz Joseph (2) Foxes and (3)the 29km long largest glacier outside the Artic, Tasman Glacier.
The helicopter ride was a maganimous 40 minutes long. We all had to wear headphones to drown out the deafening propeller sounds but also to listen to some facts from the informative pilot. Half way through the flight we had a landing on Tasman Mountain, and a photo opportunity. Jospeh was like a gunslinger on the photo draw and ample time was given us to get some mighty snaps. Little diamonds. Also on show was a one man hiker. I don't know what he was donig up there but he was pulling his slay along industriously on his way to somewhere. Would have liked a night or two there with a good book, a log fire and a hot port.
Tomorrow is an 8 hour drive to the adventure capital of the world: Queenstown.
