Incredible Helicopter indulgence

I love helicopters. There's so many bus tour and helicopter combination options here ..bus one way ,fly the other....but everyone else does that.So I had to do something different...of course!😅...the rather expensive option of a 45mins flight with 2landings and hovering in front of a waterfall was much more like it !...and it definitely delivered an incredible and amazing experience. I was collected from my accommodation and taken to the Heliport ..Following a safety briefing, I was taken to the heli with 4 other people.
The heli takes 6 passengers and the pilot. 2 people can sit at the front with the pilot, so after each stop we rotated seats so everyone got a turn in the front...I got the longest ride in the front, the whole journey back to Queenstown.
We flew into the mountains and the pilot ,James seemed to get really close to the mountains before effortlessly rising above the ridges ..and the incredible views of a valley on the other side .We saw glaciers on the sides of the mountains.,which were snow capped, but in the valley there wasn't any snow
The pilot swooped down to over the heads of some hikers..and also over some deer 🦌 in the valley
When we stopped on the top of the mountains it was incredible experience. I was also knee deep in snow ❄️..reminded me of being in Finland when I was waist high in snow...best of it is you can jump in it or fall and don't hurt yourself.
I asked the pilot if we'd be hovering in front of a waterfall and he said yeah can do ,that's easy! So he did and then took the heli to the top of the waterfall ..it just felt like a lift going up a few floors.
The pilot then did a sharp swooping turn,which did make me bit queasy.
All in all a definite highlight of this entire trip.. and huge privilege to have had the choice, the resources and opportunity to do it .
Returning to Queenstown i wandered round the shops for a bit but then decided to go on the gondola to have view over Queenstown.
There's also a cafe and a luge ride .
The view from the top was stunning.
I was really hungry as deliberately not eaten before the flight, so had a choose your topping pizza in the cafe.
Then did the luge ride ..it was getting dark and colder by the time I did this ,so just had one out of a possible 3 goes
It was a really good luge course.though I took it steadily rather than flying down as I'm mindful iv still got a lot of things booked and paid for, not least 2 international flights and and graduation to come back for
Still ,I enjoyed it.I walked back to the shops and then taxi to my accommodation.Read more