From Hokitika it was an early start to drive down for our next adventure.

When planning our itinerary Kylie had mentioned a walk up towards the base of a glacier she had previously done and loved and while we had been trying to keep it a low cost holiday we had also been tossing up splurging on helicopter tour.

I remembered my old mate and mentor, Rusty (RIP) having done a heli/hike tour onto a glacier and raving about it.

If we do the helicopter I’d love a snow or glacier landing, Say I.

That’s a great idea Kylie replies.

We begin looking into options trying to decide what would fit our wants and itinerary. Franz Josef Glacier Guides started looming large as the front runner.

This is the one part of our holiday where we decided to dam the expense and splash a bit of cash on. IMO it was worth every cent.

While FJGG supply all the outer layers to keep their clients warm they were more than happy for us to use our own gear (after confirming that it was suitable).

Our guide, Maya, was informative, funny and chill as she took us through the safety talk. That’s worst case, says she. It won’t happen today… I hope. Na, it won’t happen.

Suitably prepared we leave town via a lovely walk through the rain forest to the helipad. The group would be split into 2. And our group were first up with Maya joining us and our chopper pilot Matt giving great commentary along the way.

We had been assigned seating and Kylie had jagged a front seat, allowing her to capture some amazing videos.

Even with Matt’s commentary it was hard to come to grips with the scale of this place. It wasn’t until we were down and looking back to the following helicopter that was just a tiny speck against the mountainous back drop that it started sinking in.

Once both groups were on the ice Maya guided us on a 2.5hr loop around the glacier with lots of facts, anecdotes, and Maori legends thrown in.

Kylie was in her element, engaging in her specialities of climate science, glacial processes, and paleo-river systems. Her smile was beaming and her eyes sparkling.

It was a great experience and I’d highly recommend it.

We had jagged a perfect bluebird day. Summer is their peak season but a clear winter’s day is the perfect time to visit.

Anyhoo, we took about a thousand photos between us. Here are some of my favourite ones of mine.

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Would 100% do it again

And on an absolute high from this we cruise down to Bruce Bay for camp

Exploring Glaciers at Lunch followed by sunsets on the beach for diner.

It was a bit surreal