Cape Defiance

We started today at 5:30 am in the attempt to go to lake Matheson again in the hope that the sky's would be clear and that we would see the reflection of the snowcapped mountains on the lake, yes because I wanted to see the National Geographic picture of Mount Cook reflecting on the lake. As luck would have it with the weather, the Southern Alps had a thick bank of mist and we could not even see the foot of the mountains. Therefore it was not worth the hour hike to the lake. Instead we made good use of the public toilets and brushed our teeth as last nights campsite had only a long drop with boatload of sandflies.

We then made our way into town where Isabel made us some nice sunny side up eggs 🍳 for breakfast in in the parking lot of the heli-hike shop.

The way the heli-hike operates is to only make a call m 5 minutes before planned departure; as weather could changes so quickly. After breakfast at 7:45am the heli-hike shop confirmed that our group was a no go and we had the opportunity to get a refund or reschedule, we opted for the rescheduled group at 1:50pm in the hope that the weather improved.

As we were planning to do the 90min hike to the nearby Frans Josef Glacier, after our heli-hike anyway we decided to go do that first to kill some time. It was a beautiful 90 minute hike that got us to the terminal point of the glacier. While on the hike someone told us that we could also do the Fox glacier hike as that one gets you even closer to the glacier.

As we had more time to kill anyway we thought way not drive back to Fox and do that walk too, at the end of the day if the weather doesn't improve we at least saw both glaciers terminal points. This hike was much shorter and way easier for about 90% of the walk until the last 300m to the glacier lookout which was basically a 55° angle slope to climb, well worth the effort to see yet another glacier.

After the walk Isabel made us some gourmet ham and cheese sandwiches (ham and cheese with and edge) in the camper van before we headed back the to Heli hike shop. On the drive to the shop we heard the first helicopter fly of the day which is pretty significant as you basically head one every 5 minutes on a clear day. This meant there was hope that our trip might go ahead.

Thankfully our Heli hike happened!!

We got back to town just after 5pm and jumped in the camper almost immediately as we we still had about 5 hours to drive to our next campsite. Luckily we booked this one yesterday as we anticipated that we might only get there late and it just takes out the worry of not getting a spot.

We got to the campsite just after 10pm, had a shower and smashed a long glass of wine before passing out after a packed day.

I am so glad things worked out this way as we actually got to experience way more than we planned.

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