We didn’t know how long it would take us to go to our pick up point for the helicopter ride, so we quickly got on our way after eating to head to the Salmon Farm on the hydro canal near Lake Pukaki. It didn’t take us long at all, so we ended up checking in and paying to go check out the salmon… they’re set up in the canal, which is maybe about 40 feet deep, and maybe 40 feet wide. They have sections set up, and about 4 which you can go out on a series of bridges and see the individual squares, each of which has thousands of fish in them… of course they sell fish food, so I was reminded of Pap as I fed the huge fish small pellets as they jumped out of the water to get them.
Then time to go wait for our helicopter… As we were sitting there, I started to ask the ground guy about New Zealand (we hadn’t noticed much mammal wildlife, and an absence of predators), and he was JUST the guy I was looking for – a veritable biologist with plenty of general information to occupy my time while we were waiting! He told us how when it was found, New Zealand had virtually ZERO mammals – the only ones they had were two small species of bat, and that’s IT! The rest were introduced by the Europeans (some knowingly, some unknowingly).
New Zealand used to be the land of birds, and strange ones, at that… Apparently they’ve lost 90% of them as each species occupied a very specialized niche. The kiwi for example (still around though endangered) evolved to be much like a mammal with fur like feathers, and lives in burrows. Then there were other more unfortunate species like the Moa, a large, ostrich-like bird that was so docile that the Maori people hunted them into extinction. The loss of the Moa meant the loss of the Harris Eagle – the largest eagle probably ever in modern day times, with a wingspan of 15-17 feet, and large enough to swipe a human for food… they lived exclusively in the mountains (I think I know where dragon legends come from!), and their diet was pretty much only Moa, so you can see how the links in the chain started to come undone.
It’s written in a ship captain’s diary in the early days before there were settlers that 200 meters offshore in the ocean, the dawn birdsong from all of the different species coming off of the land was “deafening.” Hard to imagine, huh?
Then the helicopter came zooming in from the tour before us, and it was time to get excited (and temporarily blown away)! We had one other couple with us, so 5 people total including the pilot, so to take turns Curt and I sat in the back first. We climbed in (after a full safety briefing, of course which I noted had no part that said, “in the event of an emergency,” because really the next part would be, “you’re S.O.L,” though we WERE told about the emergency food, first aid kit, and signaling kit should we be fortunate enough to survive an emergency, haha), strapped in, and got our headphones on.
As we took off and I felt that weightless feeling in my stomach, it occurred to me that I had been so excited about the flight, that I forgot to consider what the flight itself would be like, which was a little bit scary but exhilarating at the same time… kind of hard to describe, actually but it was a good healthy fear mixed with excitement and wonder!
We rode out about 20ish minutes with Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman in view, and a beautiful glacial valley below with the lakes in view. Our pilot pointed out two big glaciers to us (that have formed these valleys), and then we closed in on our landing site, which again made my stomach flop as I could see the ground approaching in a way I’ve never been able to before.
When we landed on the snow I was so excited – they don’t actually stop the chopper so it’s loud and idling, but we stood up there and enjoyed the view for about 10 minutes taking pictures and exclaiming at how cool it was to be up perched on a peak like that!
Then it was time for me and Curt to be in the front, and now that we had full 360 views (including above and below), it was REALLY exciting… the take off was incredible – then we swooped off the mountain and down a little bit to get shelter behind the peak, and I literally had a moment where I thought it was just like the IMAX theater, except that THIS feeling was the feeling they try to imitate!!! It was just awesome, and the trip back felt a lot shorter… we loved it!
We were sad when it was over, but then went into town, grabbed lunch, hung out and went up to the observatory, and took a nap as we decided to book an astronomy tour. Apparently Lake Tekapo is THE place to look into the Southern Night sky – there is a huge observatory there open to the public that is run by a major university there, and I think we counted at least 6 of the huge domes for the big telescopes up there. We also had unobstructed views of the lake on the top of this mountain, and again (I know I’m being repetitive), it was gorgeous.
Our tour wasn’t going to be at the observatory though, as that tour was at 11 p.m. and was a 2 hour tour – we booked the one hour tour starting at 10:30 that was out in the field with one dome and one in ground stand for another large telescope. After our nap we cleaned up, and went into town, had a nice dinner overlooking the lake, took some pictures of the church and stars, ran home and went to go meet our tour.
And WOW – it was so much fun… educational to the point of mesmerizing (learning about light years, seeing stars with a green laser pointer that shot through the sky and learning about how old they are made us feel so small and just a tiny piece of a grand mastered universe). I immediately noticed that Orion was upside down, and it occurred to me (duh) that the sky would look completely different from this vantage point, and our tour guide filled us in on all the differences…
We learned how to identify the Southern Cross and line it up to find south (just like the Northern Star), which I’ve never seen or known about before, and of course as the Milky Way was so easily identifiable, we were able to see the Magellanic clouds which are clouds of matter that block the view to the Milky Way (which frankly I didn’t even know existed). All of this and MORE, as the sky was so filled with more stars than I have ever seen and maybe ever will see in my life. It was so romantic, too… in the big telescope we saw where old stars live, where new stars are born, and Saturn! I even saw the rings of it, which I wasn’t prepared for at all, and it was SO GREAT – really a highlight, which we hadn’t even planned on!
It was an amazing day, that’s for sure…
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