South Island

This week I have been busy travelling around the South Island visiting Queenstown, Christchurch and Mt. Cook at 12316 ft. 

On Sunday I said goodbye to my brother at Auckland airport, as me and my parents flew down for the most scenic approach into Queenstown airport. Queenstown is found on the shores of Lake Wakatipu which allowed me to experience a lake cruise and a 90kph jet-boat. It is also another location for lugeing with offers some of the best panoramic views. After leaving Queenstown on Wednesday morning, we travelled for around 5 hours by car to reach Franz Josef, a small township located at the base of glaciers and the mountains before Mt. Cook. The place itself is there mainly for helicopter tours and scenic flights which I myself was lucky to go on the next day. After flying up and down 2 glaciers and managing to go along the western-face of Mt. Cook the views were brilliant. After landing 40 minutes later, another 4-5 hour trip resulted in us arriving in Christchurch. Christchurch was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2011 and still 3 years later, it has hardly recovered. All but a few of the high-rise buildings are empty, buildings are still half-torn down and shipping containers have been used to create a temporary shopping area.

Just a few of the photos from the last week are below:

Approach into Queenstown

View of Queenstown from luging

Lake Wakatipu

Thundercreek Fall

Mt Cook & Mt Tasman

Helicopter ready to take us back down

Christchurch Shopping

Christchurch Cathedral - home to pigeons and a black cat

Our Air NZ ATR ready to take us back to Hamilton

My 10 days worth of leave finished yesterday and I have already been scheduled for 2 mass briefs today - both for night flying. I think the next 9-10 days should be still relaxing though as I have only 3 night flights to do in that time.