We woke at 8am to find a damp and cloudy day waiting for us. Unfortunately this meant that the sky dive was cancelled for the morning and we were advised to phone again at 2:30pm. We packed up our things and had breakfast, deciding to phone and cancel the sky dive as we had a long drive to Fox Glacier ahead. We were then told that things were clearing up and that an 11am jump might be possible. So we took a walk by the lake side and a short drive around the tiny town before we were able to confirm that yes, the 11am jump was going to happen.
We still had a bit of time to kill before the jump, so popped into Puzzling World on the way to the airport. Home to a maze and various other puzzles and illusions, we stopped in the big atrium and played some wooden puzzles for a while until it was time to get to the parachute site.
There we were sat in front of a couple of safety DVDs and met a lovely chatty girl, Kate, who was visiting from Australia. We were all suited and strapped in before being paired with an instructor – mine was a cheery fellow from Southport near Liverpool.
We were then crammed into a tiny plane which immediately sped off and into the air – for some reason I was expecting more instruction, so was surprised to find myself sat in a tiny tin can plane with the door open.
As the plane rose to 12,000 feet the views were quite stunning – Lake Wanaka, Lake Hawie and dozens of pure blue rivers. Once at our target altitude our instructors hooked in the necessary straps and one by one we shuffled out the door. I was third, with Laura last out right behind me.
The freefall was literally breath taking and quite a rush – although nothing compared to the bungee! We performed a few spins each before the parachute opened and we drifted gently down. I had a quick go on the controls of the parachute, left a bit, right a bit and then felt quite queasy as my instructor took us into a tight spin. Laura managed to hit her instructor in the face on landing – putting her feet down early to avoid hitting another instructor on the ground (oblivous to the fact that this person was waiting to catch her parachute!).
We chatted a little more to Kate and as she was at a loose end we gave her a lift back to Puzzling World where we all walked around the hall of illusions. Laura was feeling a little queasy after her jump, and something in the amazing ’sloping room’ made her feel even more so, so we took a seat and had a wee drink. Feeling a bit better, we then had a quick wander around the maze. Far from a-maze-ing in our opinion! Ho ho.
After dropping Kate off in Wanaka we then began the long drive to Fox Glacier. We stopped to view the Blue Pools, a 20 minute walk through the woods. Unfortunately half way to the pools I realised that I didn’t have the car keys, so we decided to race the rest of the track to the Blue Pools. They were very underwhelming, ‘Brown pools’ being a more accurate name. Perhaps the weather had churned them up… We immediately raced back to the car to find the keys hanging in the boot – what a relief! And also, d’oh!
The drive took in some impressive scenery and we stopped a couple of times to take a look. First at a road bridge over a large churning waterfall charging over huge boulders, and then at a smaller, higher waterfall that was a short signposted walk from the road.
As we emerged onto the west coast, the weather worsened to the heaviest rain we had ever seen, the windscreen wipers barely able to cope with the torrent. Despite this we stopped at Knight’s Point for the legendary views – of course they were almost completely obscured, but the rain was so humourously heavy that we enjoyed the quick run to the viewpoint.
The road ran right up to the coastline – the lashing rain, the lack of cars, the wildly swaying trees and the huge crashing waves at see made for a miserable but quite impressive scene. It was a long and tiring drive, often crossing long single lane bridges with visibility almost nothing in the rain. It was a relief to finally pull into the small township of Fox Glacier, racing through the rain to the hostel.
The hostel manager warned us that the helicopter flights do not run during poor weather, so our hopes for the morning were very low. However, pleased to be warm and dry, we dashed quickly through the rain to the nearby restaurant, The Plateau. We were pretty ravenous, and I had a tasty chicken burger and some great chips. Laura went for some fantastic lamb served with ‘gourmet pototoes’. As delivered the potatoes were far from it, but Laura saved them with a bit of mashing, salt and butter. Delicious.
For dessert I had a sticky toffee style cake with icecream – very nice, and even sweeter for being left off the bill. Does that make us bad people?
We were shocked to find it was only 8:30pm when we got into bed – but I only managed to read a couple of pages of my book before falling fast asleep. Laura being Laura, she watched five minutes of a movie, Possession, and then was hooked until the end!
