We have been so blessed with the weather on this South Island tour. The West Coast is notoriously wet and, to date, we have hardly seen any rain at all.
Today was no different and should have started with a helicopter trip over Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, but due to the windy conditions high in the mountains our flight was delayed until 3pm. So that gave us the morning to visit the nearby coastal settlement of Okarito. This, like many others, was a booming gold mining town back in the 19th century, but is now a sleepy village consisting mainly of holiday cottages. It has a beautiful lagoon with many birds, especially white herons, so it is a popular place for nature lovers and walkers. The tide was out when we arrived, but we noticed it coming in with great speed
On the way back to Franz Josef we stopped to do the 30 minute each way Pahiki walk. This was uphill through rainforest to a wonderful purpose built timber lookout platform with views over rainforest to the coast in one direction, and over similar forest to the high mountains in the other.
We lunched back in Franz Josef and duly 'checked in' for our 30 minute glacier flight at 2.45pm. It was a staggering experience. We were amazed how quickly we gained height and sped to Fox Glacier. The mountains and surrounding countryside looked magnificent from the helicopter. We landed on the top of Fox Glacier and had 10 minutes or so to walk around and take photos
Other photos are on my Picasaweb site https://picasaweb.google.com/judystevens17/NewZealandFebApril2011#
Sometimes we flew quite low and by zooming in with my camera I was able to get some amazing photos of the compacted snow:
Fox Glacier:
A truly unforgettable experience.
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