MADisON_veloCITY: Potong Glacier!

When I was six years old, I used to watch the drama series like Knight Rider, A-Team, Mission Impossible and the one that I would like to take mention here, Air Wolf. The opening theme of the Airwolf still stucked in my memory that I hummed the music when I was about taking my first helicopter ride. Flying between an airplane and helicopter is quite a bit different feeling. In a chopper, you need not to straighten up you seat. You are required to wear a hearing aid gear to listen to your pilot instruction. And there’s no toilet break. Since it early morning and there are not much cloud to protect us from the direct sunlight, we were instructed to wear sunglasses. Luckily I brought my clip-on sunglasses. As for Han Ching and those who didn’t prepare one, they received a loan Rayban sunglasses instead!

There was one couple inside the helicopter that are into their 70s. Boy, I am surprised by their will to thrill at their age. After seeing the world so much at their age, helicopter ride was just peanut to them. Why? They aren’t as thrill like the that couple sitting besides them (being us) and the old lady dozed off during that short ride.

The view from top was awesome. Simply amazing. The view is as though you are seeing a white colour Grand Canyon. The mountains were covered with glacier. A glance on it makes you think like sitting on top of Haagen Dazs ice cream bucket.

After some briefing by the pilot on all the peak’s name around that area, the pilot flew us to Mount Cook. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. The English name of Mount Cook was given to the mountain in honour of Captain James Cook who first surveyed and circumnavigated the islands of New Zealand. Captain Cook himself did not sight the mountain during his exploration. Therefore, the next time if you want something to be named after you just do charity and hope one day out of the blue, people especially in JKR, when they ran out of idea on the naming of roads, instead of coming up with funny names like Jalan Manis, Jalan Masin or Jalan Besar they might name it after you.

Frankly speaking, when the pilot kept on pointing to different peaks and their names, I was not aware which peak he was referring. Just imagine he just pointed one finger on the west and shout out, “Oh there’s Mount Tasman on the far right”. I looked to my right.

….. (There’s even Mount Kinabalu on the far left corner, Mr Pilot)

Nevertheless, we soon descended on top of a mountain which is designated for safe landing by helicopter. We were given strict 10-15 minutes to walk around. This was our first experience on glacier. Well, we watch a lot of movie where the kids make snowball and throw at each others, but we can’t do it here. Snow is snow and glacier is glacier. Snow comes from the sky. Glacier formed on the surface. It is so hard that we can’t form one ball. If we managed to dig out one too, it is not a good idea to throw one on your friends. But I reckoned this place is a good idea for Ais Kacang. Come to think about it why New Zealand Natural Ice Cream does not want to set up a booth up there trying to sell Ais Batu Campur. Our Tourism Minister for sure wouldn’t mind that idea.

Han Ching was asking me the other day why all the nice shots do not have me in the picture. Ahem… Have you ever seen a professional photographer took pictures of the nice scenery with him inside the photos? The answer is “No”, right? The whole journey only lasted for 40 minutes. Talk about punctuality of time. How I wish the pilot was a Malaysian. We could easily delay and extended our journey up there by more than half an hour.

Since this journey is such a short one. It feels like P1 Wimax. Potong stim. We still had one full day on ourselves. As we didn’t opt for the glacier hike originally, we decided to go for Fox Glacier Valley Walk trail, the nearest and shortest way to see the glacier. As we went through the rocky and bumpy road leading to the glacier valley, we saw barricade leading to the glacier was blocked to tourists. Information regarding the hazard due to heavy rain the night before and also some accidents early of the year due to falling glacier were published on their notice board. With no qualified guide, visitors are not allowed to go in. In Malaysia, when they put a car park sign of “Full Parking”, we will still enter the parking compound. But here, the people heed the advice put on board. No means no. P1 Wimax again. Really potong stim! It is just like I’m in a stuck situation like Aron Ralston did in the movie 127 hours. Just that this time I wasted 127 minutes instead.

I looked at the map and was offered another trail where I can get a good lookout on the glacier. We made a U-turn and opt for Chalet Lookout Walk trail without thinking twice. Trekking at New Zealand rain forest was really cool and relaxing. First you don’t get creepy insects there. Some more they don’t have any snakes here which makes your journey really safe you see.