Going up, and up, and up...

I have a confession to make, I have never flown in a helicopter. Dotty has not either. This was a first. Jim however has been in many helicopters.

Monday morning dawns bright and early. Not early enough as the Bills game came on at 6 and Jim and I didn’t wake up until 6:30. It was a bad start to the game. Jim took a shower, I put on my Bills clothes and the ones I would be wearing hiking on a glacier. It should be cold, right? We met Dotty for buffet breakfast, each of us with our phones in hand showing the game on Discord. We finished breakfast and then headed back to our rooms to watch the game. Once we procured the win, we left the hotel and walked up town toward the Helicopter Line. Where we thought we were to meet up with our group. Oops.. wrong meet up place. Franz Josef, the town is easily reachable via walking and we were quickly redirected… The meet up point was actually out our back door of the hotel and to the left. Literally a stone’s throw away. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I took Dotty’s photos, Jim photos, and mine and combined them on my phone into a movie. It is different from the slideshow, I created of the TransAlpine train ride. Tell me what you think!

Tom was our guide. He did a great job herding us. Well me actually. I don’t think I have ever walked in crampons. Trying to keep all his instructions straight and keep my balance, even with a ski pole for a counter balance. I ended up falling a couple of times, Tom was gracious and said he thought I was sitting on purpose… Nope, I just know how to fall. Glad no one took pictures of my getting up.. That was not as graceful. But as I have fallen many times, I know how to get myself up. Cale was our safety guy. He went ahead to prepare places for us, checking out the deepness of the snow and ice, hooking up ropes, making smiley faces in the snow! Cale was the one posing at the end of the video.

We met the couple riding in the heli with us. They were from Spain and on their honeymoon. Did you know in Spain you get 15 days of Honeymoon leave and you can combine it with your vacation? Wow! How civilized. However, you can only use the honeymoon clause once.

Tom told us a couple of Māori stories. Now understand, each iwi or tribe has their own versions as the original Māori language was oral and never written down until the British came.

The first story: Papatūānuku (the Earth Mother) and Ranginui (the Sky Father) had many sons and like good parents they wanted to keep all their children together, but like boys they were they wanted to separate and spread out. So one son stood on his head and pushed Papatūānuku down with his hands and pushed Ranginui up with his legs. Four of the sons, Aoraki, Rakirua, Rakiroa and Rarakiroa, stayed with their father, while the other sons went with their mother. They created the forests, the birds, the fish, the flowers. Aoraki, Rakirua, Rakiroa and Rarakiroa missed their family and decided to go for a visit. They got a waka, canoe, said a karakia, or blessing over the waka. This karakia embued the waka with magical powers that allowed the brothers to leave the heavens and come to earth. After a while, the brothers were hungry and left to go back to their father. As Aoraki was saying the karakia to get them back to the heavens, one of his brothers was throwing a fit over the last piece of food. This disruption made Aoraki lose concentration and the waka and brothers came crashing back down to earth. The waka split into many pieces and the brothers were able to climb aboard the biggest piece.The brothers called out for years and years, centuries and centuries, but no one heard their cry of help. No one came. The waka being made out of wood, became petriified and then the brothers turned to stone. The waka creating what is now the South Island, or Te Waka o Aoraki. The brothers: Rakirua-Mount Teichelmann, Rakiroa-Mount Dampier, Rarakiroa-Mount Tasman and the tallest of them all, Aoraki-Mount Cook. These mountains became known as the Southern Alps, Kā Tiritiri o Te Moana.

The second story was the creation of Franz Josef Glacier: The story begins with Hinehukatere, an extremely strong and fearless girl who loved climbing in the mountains. Her lover Wawe was a flatlander and not very adept as Hinehukatere at climbing mountains. One day Wawe decides to go mountain climbing with Hinehu. To make a long story short, Wawe falls to his death. Hinehu is devastated and runs further into the mountains and cries and cries. Her tears flow down the mountain. The gods froze her tears as a reminder of her love for Wawe.

Franz Josef Glacier moves about 50 cm a day, approximately 10 cm in the 2 hours we were up on the glacier. The scientific research was done by watching a plane that had flown into the glacier during WWII and it took 7 years for the pieces of the plane to make it down to the sea.

Man were we hot, tired, and hungry after getting off that glacier. We picked up the Gammy, changed our clothes, then headed out to Snakebite for a quick beverage and snack before our 6:30 pm dinner reservations. Gammy told her story of walking to town while we were gone to get a flat white and a gluten free lemon muffin.

Jim and I walked back to our room after stopping at the store. They have a penny machine.. well not a penny machine. It doesn’t press the pennies. You give the machine a $2 coin and it gives you a souvenir coin in return. I had seen one of these somewhere before but it was out of order. I will keep looking for these, although we are almost done with our trip (insert sad face). So Jim and I made it back to our room, Dotty and Gammy walked around shopping. At 5:30 we met up for celebratory bubbles and to head to dinner.

So dinner again is the degustation 5 course meal. Gammy did not order the soup or the cheese plate. She did, however order 2 desserts, and although she did not eat all her dinner, she ate all her dessert!

Our very excellent driver, Rachel, from yesterday, mentioned that there were gloworms around the property. After dinner, Dotty and I spoke to the young lady working the desk and she said to come back when it got dark. Around 8:45 pm, Dotty and I walked back up to the front desk. The young lady closed the desk, grabbed her torch and said, “Follow me”. So we did. The gloworms live on the rock walls around the paths that run around the property. She said there might only be 3 or 4. She was wrong!