A little lie in this morning as we were in no screaming hurry to get on the road.  In fact a special treat for breakfast, boiled egg and toasted soldiers.  It would have been eggs, but the first one was so underdone it was sent straight to the bin.  The second one got an extra couple of minutes and was perfect.  Another dump was necessary this morning as was topping up with fresh water as we had a small accident yesterday when a pot of blackcurrent jam decided to empty itself over the entire contents of the fridge whist we were driving along.  For a while, we could hear something rattling around, but that’s not unusual in the van.  When we stopped it turned out to be the jam jar.  We managed to clear most of the food up, but a few bits had to go.  Blackcurrent coleslaw, just doesn’t taste right.

Weather wise it wasn’t a bad start to the day, hazy sunshine, but a little chilly.  The forecast for the day wasn’t that promising, but in fact turned out to be a reasonable day.  That’s more than can be said for the forecast for the next couple of days at the glaciers.  Rain on Tuesday followed by heavy rain on Wednesday.  Still the forecast could be wrong.

Before leaving Greymouth we visited one of the numerous Jade carving  establishments and had a short walk round the town.  Architecturally, Greaymouth is back in the dark ages and it has to be said they do not appear to be quite as warm and friendly as folks in Christchurch and in the North.

Leaving Greymouth behind us, we headed for Shanty Town, a small settlement that is a relic of the gold mining era.  Shanty Town has been preserved and restored and also contains buildings and antiquities from other parts of the country.  In some ways, slightly tacky, but it does give a feel for what life may have been like for the prospectors in the 1800’s.

From Shanty Town it was a fairly uninteresting drive, apart from  a few quirky little old mining towns and a lunch stop just South of Ross, another historic mining town.  The roads were fairly straight and level until we started to descend the mountains  towards Franz Joseph .  About 25Kms from the glaciers and just after Whataroa we pulled into a picnic area for afternoon tea.  In the picnic area was a cabin from which they were flying helicopters up to the glaciers.  We had intended to take a trip up either Franz Joseph or Fox Glacier and in view of the poor weather for the next few days, we decided to enquire as to what was on offer.  It was about 2.30 pm and it was clear that the weather was already closing in.  We decided to take one of the trips as the probability was that there would be no flights for the next couple of days and we would not see any of the glaciers from the top.  We spent more than we had budgeted for, but the trip was 40 minutes long and included a landing on Franz Joseph Glacier.  Fox Glacier was already shrouded in cloud and a landing there was impossible.  By the time we had put some long trousers on and our fleeces, the chopper was banking through the valley, bringing the previous trippers back.  After a quick briefing, we were strapped in and ready to go.  The helicopter was only a 4 seater and one of them was the pilot.  The fourth person was a single lady from North Island.  She got to ride alongside the pilot for the outbound trip.  Maureen and I sat in the back. 

As we lifted off the pilot dipped the nose and we sped off down the valley gaining height up to 2500 feet.  Even though the low cloud was misting things up a bit, we could still see for miles.  On one side was the start of the Southern Alps and on the other, the Tasman Sea.  The pilot was giving a commentary all the way, pointing out geological phenomenon and points of interest.  Within about 5 minutes of flying at 100 knots, we were just arriving over the town of Franz Joseph and he was just lining up to give a view of the glacier ahead of us.  We flew fairly high to start with, then part way up we passed another helicopter coming down and the pilot banked steeply to the right and headed for a waterfall.  We were now skimming the iceflow and heading directly for the waterfall, when he just banked very steeply, missing the waterfall and started to ‘climb’ up one of the glacier walls.  The view in the front seat must have been incredible.  From there we were back skimming over the ice banking from side to side to give everyone a view.  Finally, we arrived almost at the top of the glacier and another steep bank bought us into position to land.  Gently down onto the snow and with the rotors still running the pilot let us out and onto the snow. 

 

 Not straying too far from the chopper, we all snapped away as this was an experience that we were unlikely to repeat.  Also, there are lots of crevasses around and it would be very unhealthy to fall into one!  Back into the helicopter and it was my turn in the front seat.  Definitely not for the feint hearted, we started to descend and headed straight for the opposite side of the glacier towards another smaller one, then banking steeply at what seemed like the last minute, we were back over the icefield.  All the time the running commentary continued.  The weather at Fox Glacier had deteriorated, so we were unable to fly over it, but instead we returned to base over the mountains.  What seemed a bit spooky was when we were just coming up to the ridge of a mountain and the ground was not visible on the other side, it felt as if we should drop down the other side, but of course you just carry on.  Most peculiar feeling, especially as the floor in front of you is glass.

Back to base, a wonderful experience and memories we will have forever.

The onward journey to Franz Joseph in the campervan seemed to take forever and was just not the same as an hour earlier.  Finally arriving at the campsite, we decided to stay just the one night as the weather is forecast to be wet and miserable and we had already done the helicopter trip.  So on to Wanaka tomorrow.

After feasting on lamb this evening, we set too to write today’s blog.  Today definitely ranks up there with seeing the sperm whale diving at Kaikoura.