Ok, so how many of us have wondered why we worked so hard for so long. Was it all worth it? For us the answer is an emphatic yes because it's enabled us to do this trip and it would still be affirmative if we had only experienced what we've seen over the last two days, let alone the rest of it!
Early in the journey we spotted the first snowy peak!
19th was nephew Ben's birthday so we had to do something special - and we did! Came up to the Franz Josef glacier today - great camp site with a clear view of the snowy mountains. Fab weather with clear blue skies and sunshine.
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| Camp site from ground and the air |
And then had the most spectacular 50 minutes or so. We flew in an 8 seater plane (pilot included) over the Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers, Mount Cook and Mount Tasmin and some absolutely amazing mountains, rivers and forestation in between. Mount Cook at some 3,754 metres is NZ's tallest mountain. Got up to about 14,000 feet at times but also quite low over the glaciers - or so we thought until we spotted some helicopters landing on the glacier and they looked the size of "nats" from our view point. We took oodles of photos so here are just a sample to give you an idea of the wonderful scenery here. We are SO lucky!
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| Franz Josef Glacier |
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| Mount Tasmin |
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| Mount La Perouse |
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| Waiho River |
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| helicopters landing on Franz Josef glacier |
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| Deep snow - up to 30 metres deep |
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| Looking down Franz Josef Glacier |
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| Okarito Forest and valley |
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| Godley Glacier |
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| Back on the ground! |
Walked up to the bottom of the Franz Josef glacier today. Gave us a facinating perspective of how the ice has forged its way through the rocks, creating a deep valley. Information boards along the way showed us how dramatic the reduction of the glacier has been since the 1800's when it was first discovered. Back then pretty much everything we walked along today would have been covered by the glacier. In recent years the glacier has advanced and retreated but the betting is that it will recede further.
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| Bottom of Franz Josef glacier |
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| A Timotei moment by the waterfall! |
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