Day 30 - A Perfect Day in Franz Josef

​I have had some pretty special days whilst travelling over the past months, but I think today has been one of the very best.

I was very relieved to wake up to decent weather, making it likely that our booked helicopter flight would go ahead. After a quick breakfast, the seven of us who had signed up headed to the helicopter offices to check-in and have the pre-flight safety video. I must confess to having enjoyed the video, with highlights including instructions not to throw snowballs at the helicopter, and not to put your hands in the air near the helicopter…

We then had a short minibus ride out to the landing site, and it was wonderful to see four helicopters all come in to land in something close to a formation. Jonathan, Viktoria, Fionnuala, Dana and I were in one helicopter with pilot Aaron, and we were soon soaring in the air with stunning views of the mountains and glacier. 


We then landed on the Franz Josef glacier and had ten minutes to walk on the ice and take photos. It was an incredible experience.


It was then a short trip back down to the landing site. We were absolutely buzzing when we landed, so promptly headed to a cafe for a celebratory pot of tea whilst we admired all our photos.

Dana, Viktoria, Fionnuala and I then went to the Wildlife sanctuary. We were able to see two kiwis (as they are protected and in low light, photos are not allowed) and some tuataras. We spent a long time watching the kiwis in particular, as they are fascinating creatures, and oddly mesmerising.


The absolute highlight though was seeing the little blue penguins at feeding time. These are the same type of penguin that are on Philip Island in Australia (giving me fond memories of the Penguin Parade there when I last visited Oz in 2015), and are utterly adorable. The seven penguins at the sanctuary are all injured penguins who have been rescued, which makes them even more delightful. I make absolutely no apologies for having taken so many pictures! This is just some of them….


We spent a bit of time in the gift shop, obviously as one has to support conservation, and not just because the penguin themed merino wool hats were adorable….. 


It was then time for some lunch, and a small amount of downtime before our afternoon activity - greenstone carving. 

As a group we had found a lot of lovely stones on the beach yesterday, and Jan (who runs the greenstone carving business) was able to tell us which were any good for carving and sanding. Sadly my stones were not the best, but Viktoria had enough aroha stones to sink a battleship, so gave me one, and I also got a small pounamu (greenstone) from Jan. I then spent a very happy couple of hours initially sanding them down and shaping them, and then shining them with diamond-paper. Jan then helped me to fit them together on a necklace to treasure.


By this point it was dinner time, so we headed to the same restaurant as last night, albeit without the hummer this time! I had a lovely smoked salmon and spinach pizza, and then even capped off a wonderful day with a win at pool! 


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