New Zealand - Day 3

Travelled 181 kms

Hokitika is Maori for Place of Return. Good job I don’t speak the language because although the town itself was lovely and the i site people really nice, and helpful, the campsite was not so good. The Manageress’s Granda was from Ballymena, although we shouldn’t hold that agin her! We had a wonder through the town and left it for the young thrill seekers.

We’d left our itinerary for the helicopter flight at home so we thought it best to get to Franz Josef earlier rather than later. For this part of the trip everything is revolving around the flight. It was part of M’s Christmas Pressie. The balloon flight had to be cancelled which was out of our control, I’d hate for anything to go wrong with this flight. We’d explained our problem to a girl at the i site and she got on the case. She traced the airline and there are a lot. She even got the flights rearranged to today. Fantastic.

We drove the typically twisty route to what is just like a mountain resort in Europe. Some of the views especially the earlier ones of Mount Cook and its slightly smaller neighbour Mount Tasman were inspiring. I don’t know why, but I thought I’d put that word in there as you’ll all be sick of the nicey nicey words that I need to describe this land.

Even though we were climbing steadily, the temperature was not dropping it was another glorious day. The temperature would get up to 33 today, the skies would remain deep deep blue, and we’d be up there above the snow.

Following the directions given in the I site we found the company no problem. As usual a young team of willing staff manned it. They changed our booking till this afternoon, but since they needed to have four passengers per flight we’d have to wait for two hours. Definitely not a problem in a place like Franz Josef.

Out we went into a glorious day and had a coffee each in the wee restaurant next door. I got the impression M would rather have had a nice big G & T! Since it is the Southern Alps I expected the air to be thin and a lot like the European Alps. This was not the case. It was very pleasant.
$780 for two is a lot of dosh to hand out for a forty-minute flight, but the thrill to be had makes it seem worthwhile.

We were taken out to the chopper, which was just across the road, over a car park and over a steep bank with steps cut into it.

My original plot was to video the whole flight, but this was not to be. I just did every other two minutes, until just as we were going down to land on the snowfield it fell asleep.The video camera, that is. I blamed it all on our Adam. He wasn’t here and he’d never know!

The flight was indeed thrilling, M was put in the front seat, myself behind the jockey, a member of staff beside me and a Herman beside him. Take off was smooth and we soon had climbed to about a thousand feet, watching the valley unfold into a living breathing patchwork quilt far below us. The jockey wanted to turn to the left but a low cloud had come down and at the last minute he decided to veer sharply right. The guy who was previously beside me was now below me and the Herman below him. Below that was an awful lot of emptiness until the ground. That at least will break our fall I thought.

After passing over the crystal blueness of the first glacier we headed up and over Mount Cook. This is the highest mountain in South Island, it’s as rugged and barren as ould Ena Sharples. We dipped and turned our way over more peaks and valleys until we went down to walk on the glacial snow that covered this part of the range.

There was a thin coating of brown stuff on parts of the snow. No, this was not in fact anything to do with previous passengers. It was dust that had blown in from Australia at the end of September. Seems it had come from the bush, covered the Eastern parts of Oz and ended up in NZ about fifteen hundred miles away. Or so.

That’s that then. The video went to sleep just as we were going in to land on the snow, but I thought there’d be enough to show how good it was. I really wanted the grandkids to share our adventure.

There were four other choppers on the snow. A very lucrative business if you’ve a couple of mill to get you going. We took off after the last of the other choppers and chased him down the valley.
The four of us got off the chopper agreeing that there were no superlatives that would describe the trip. I asked the Pilot if he enjoyed what he did and did he agree he should get a wage out of it. He laughed the laugh of a really contented man and said “Well somebody’s gotta do it”

We were told at the i centre about a place we could wild camp. Once I got this out of my system we could and would camp anywhere. On any commercial site M would choose. The place we thought was the location turned out to be a bloody mini hydro electric power station, there are loads of these on the faster flowing rivers.

We left this place promptly and made our way to Okarito. A very lovely old village hugging the coast on a flat and level peninsula. It lies on five mile beach, must be a younger relation of ninety mile beach elsewhere. We found a site organised by the local community. You parked up got organised and then took an envelope from a dispensary, filled it with $20 and that was your payment for the night. For this you got clean and adequate facilities, a communal hut with no glazing, big comfy sofas, and a view to die for. Between the site and the sea I noticed all these tyres painted white lying on the long grass and thought it must be a runway or something similar. After walking for another while we came across a sign, which read “Beware Runway. Don’t camp on the grass it could be Dangerous.” A cartoon plane and a cartoon campervan highlighted this

It was not strictly wild camping so we went on our way to another place.

This took us to a huge lake, Mapourika. Very picturesque but run by the council, and extremely basic. This was what we wanted, they even had one of the deep cut toilets! We chose to use our own as this one was getting closer to its best before date.

There were about eight other vans and four tents, sitting on either a tarmac roadway or on a neatly mown grassy area. Where we parked was beside the grass, and about forty feet away, the huge lake. We had rib eyes and spinach and some Vienna rye bread and butter cooked in the van and ate inside as well. There was no BBQ at this site but a young English couple had gathered up some wood and lit a fire, on which they cheerfully cooked their evening meal.

The sun went down about 8:45 and by nine we noticed some flies in the van. This wasn’t a problem because the stars seemed closer and brighter in this remote place. We just sat in our wee chairs and gazed upward. Lost to the world in our own thoughts.

I’d left the door open whilst out happy snapping and several thousand Sand Flies had decided to squat in our place. Armed with rolled up paper and mossie spray we embarked on a killing mission. It’s of little consequence now, but since this night we’ve discovered the West Coast of New Zealand is home to the most horrible flying insect in the world. By sheer numbers alone they outrank the mosquito. That said, they are so stupid when they land on you it’s the easiest thing in the world to squash them. All that’s left is a black and red stain.

We thought we’d got rid of them and went to bed after a couple of decent Gins.

After falling into a sound sleep I was wakened by the buzz of a flying insect, I tried to fend off the annoyance but the wee sh1ts persisted. By this time, about 3:30I was wide-awake and covered in bites. Patience is a virtue but by four thirty I was so unvirtuos. M woke up scratching herself and together we resembled two mangy ould dogs trying to dislodge their fleas.

We made coffee and went on our way at six. It would have been a lot earlier but M wasn’t happy about nighttime driving. Eh? Who was driving?