Live the Live ™

Survived the ride!

The helicopter ride over the mountains to Milford Sound was just mind-boggling. I know Kelly was having a great time, because she was smiling, laughing, and take one picture after another. Ava was having fun talking into the headsets and occasionally looking out the window to see what was going on. Next to Ava sat Sarah, a young lady from northern Ireland, and she kept Ava company, goofing around with her on the headset microphones.

Interestingly, my headphones’ microphone was broken, so although I could hear the pilot’s directions, he in turn, could not hear the faint whimpering of my wussy girl-like self.

By the time I had stepped onto the helicopter, I had popped by second Valium, so although I was feeling no pain on the ground, I was yet to know what I would experience once we took off.

Taking off in a helicopter is a very strange feeling like no other. I’ve watched enough episodes of MASH to know how they work, but being in one is a whole different animal. We had a great, experienced pilot that was no-nonsense when it came to the safety of all aboard–that would be a total of 7 including the pilot–and the ride was surprisingly smooth, even when he would hit the unavoidable pockets of air cruising along the sides of mountains.

The size of the mountains that we flew over was jaw-dropping…it felt like we barely scraped over the tops of the peaks before the ground suddenly vanished beneath us into a massive valley thousands feet below. I have to admit that sometimes I would turn my camcorder on, point it in the direction of the mountain peak as we approached it, and then closed my eyes and hoped for the best as we went over the top.

Our first landing was on a grassy mountain top where we made a stop for a few minutes, just enough time to sort of get my “land legs” again before hopping back into the copter. This was the perfect place to do something I had waited all trip long: Kelly held the camcorder and I did my best impression of Julie Andrews running through the field with huge mountains in the background like the opening scene to “The Sound of Music.” ‘The hills are aliiiiiive……’ I’m sure the others in the helicopter thought I had lost my mind.

We then took off to Milford Sound, flying over lakes and rivers that finally brought us in 30 minutes as the crow flies to a place that takes almost 8 hours by bus! Unfortunately, Milford Sound itself was kind of fogged in a bit, so we landed in the airstrip area where all the helicopters and planes go, and took a 20 minute walk to the coast, where we got some nice shots of the Sound nonetheless.

Before take-off: Valium number 3! I was burning those suckers up like an Olympian!
Then it was back into the helicopter for what would be the highlight (literally) of the trip: we landed on top of a glacier! It was pretty scary and a bit slippery as we landed and stepped out of the copter to take photos of each other in a very special place only few on this planet have been able to visit.

Kelly, of course, brought some champagne, so we cracked that sucker open and all shared in our success to making it to the top! Our pilot warned us of crevasses nearby…and you could see area where the ice and snow was splitting…so we made it a quick (and very chilly) visit before it was time to hop back into the helicopter for the ride home.

Winding through different mountains, we saw waterfalls far below…rivers…lakes…and the occasional critter that lives in these high-altitude Alpine areas.

Safe landing back at Queenstown airport, and our adrenalin-pumping trip was done…all of us very happy to have experienced it. I’m glad I did it…and glad to know that I will never have to do that again!!!

The descent into Queenstown

Our first night at the Canyons Lodge was very comfortable…a big fat bed with an unsurpassed view (see previous page) The property here is stunning, and just 4km from downtown Queenstown.

We had a nice night of strolling around town last night, grabbing a few bites to eat, but mainly staring our at the amazing mountain range across the lake from Queenstown. Appropriately enough, the mountain range is simply called: The Remarkables. Sounds like a rock band or a group of superheroes! And remarkable they really are.

We’ve had a great breakfast prepared by our host, Andy. He and his fiance, Mel, run this place and have made us very welcome here. We had a little meet-and-greet wine and cheese session yesterday afternoon…and at least for one night, we had the run of the place. I guess a couple of new guests arrive today. But the lodge doesn’t hold many people at once, and that’s a very good thing. Nice to be spoiled at the end of a long line of roadtrips!

So I’m trying not to think about it, but we are just two hours away from getting on a helicopter and touring the famous Milford Sound…one of the earth’s youngest fiords, by that I mean that erosion has not had a chance to take its toll on the cliffs, which are still perfectly vertical. I will report about all of that later.

One more photo to post: as we made our way through the Cardorna Valley, we descended onto Queenstown. Our new buddy, Tim, a bus man at the George Hotel at Christchurch who was extremely helpful in giving us great places to eat and drink here in Queenstown (along with the names of people he knows), described this descent as a plane landing into Queenstown…and he’s absolutley right! We got video of the winding road, so we’ll post that later. But I think Kelly’s photo here says it all. (By the way…if I didn’t mention it before, Tim was so cool and helpful to us that he received the coveted third bottle of Krupnikas that I brought on this trip. Anyone else that would deserve one will have to wait until we get back home and I will make the attempt to ship it. Speaking of that, another George employee that was extremely helpful was Brad. You may recall that his friend Paula (who worked at the French Cafe in Auckland, who also gave us a lot of good Qtown advice) told us to make ourselves known to Brad when we arrived in Christchurch, and that we did. Brad added to Tim’s list of food and wine places, and important names to drop, so we are all set here.

OK…I took a Lorazapam…that would be valium. Step one in getting on that helicopter!