Sunday 2nd December – To Franz Josef for Helicopter hiking!

A beautiful day dawned on our campsite (left). We hit the road arriving at the West Coast for some stunning views and it was hot enough to enjoy a Kiwi treat at Bruce Bay – real fruit ice cream. You choose your fruit flavour and it gets blended into some creamy vanilla ice cream right before your eyes. Flavour of choice today was mango. 

Becks modelling at Bruce Bay with a real fruit ice cream

First glacier of the day....

We rolled into Fox Glacier nice and early to allow time for lunch before getting to Franz Josef for our glacier tour. Wouldn’t it be lovely to find a pretty view point to get an early glimpse of a glacier?  Traveller’ Autobahn App to the rescue yet again! 

Peak View Point 10km out of the Township was in the perfect position to set up the camper, get the chairs out and soak in the panorama.

Not a bad spot for lunch!

All dressed up and ready to go....

We got into Franz Josef excited but slightly nervously looking forward to our tour.  We’d both brought lots of cold weather and waterproof gear for the trip but it turned out we didn’t need any of it.  The company we’d booked with wanted everyone to be warm and dry, so supplied us all with high quality waterproof trousers, jackets, boots, crampons and even socks.  It took ages to get everybody fitted in the right sized clothing (left). 

The clouds that put a stop to our afternoon plans...

The adrenaline was pumping as we moved into the foyer for our last-minute safety briefing.  Then the guy talking to us received a special sign from the front desk – and the trip was cancelled!  

I thought they were kidding at first but they were serious and this is why (right).  Despite it having been glorious weather all day to this point, large dark clouds had now descended into the valley and it was unsafe for the helicopters to fly.  How disappointing?! But at the same time, it was reassuring to know that it as safety first before profit when conditions were not good.  Everyone was offered full refunds or the chance to re-book if there was a suitable time.  Well, it turned out it depended who you spoke to!  The first girl who we spoke to said there was no room on the first flight next morning so Becks and I had a pow-wow about whether we should cancel or postpone activities the next day in order to get our Heli hike in.  Taking this time helped. We spoke to somebody else and suddenly there were two spaces for us on the first scheduled tour of the morning and we were in with no need to adjust our plans after all! Phew!

We then had a free afternoon and nowhere to go. Nothing for it but to jump in the spa pool at our camp site and follow that up with dinner and drinks at a local bar.