travel essay: flying over the remarkables

While in Queenstown over the Queen’s birthday weekend, I took the opportunity to explore the Remarkables mountain range by helicopter. I had contacted several tour companies asking about media rates and had been in contact with The Helicopter Line, based out at the Queenstown airport in Frankton. They said they had a 2:30 flight available, did I want to come on that? I said yes and was picked up in town at 2pm.

My fellow passengers were an American family visiting Australia and New Zealand on a whirlwind three-week vacation. (They seemed surprised that I was here for so long, but hopefully they read this blog and realise that I haven’t seen everything I want to see and that a year in NZ is not even close to enough time to slow travel!) Our final fellow passenger met us at the pad, a Kiwi bloke whose name nor occupation I caught.

Once at base, we were run through a safety briefing and weighed – this does have some effect on the placement of passengers in the helicopter, if I remember correctly. After Jacinda ran us through the safety protocols, we waited in the warmth of the office for our chariot.

Our pilot Pete appeared shortly afterward, his sleek black chopper gliding through the sky and banking before setting down directly on the x. Jacinda led us out there, her dark hair whipping in the wind created by the blades; mine did the same. I was settled in the front seat and buckled in; the remainder of guests set in the back. Before I could register what was happening, the doors were closed, the pilot was speaking through the headsets, and we were away.

The Remarkables mountain range begins at the edge of Frankton, the mountains seemingly starting from the plain and rising high against the blue sky. We soared right to the top, banking twice over the snowy face, over another chopper, and landed about a kilometre in from the edge of the mountain. We sat on the face, a few sharp rocks sticking up at an angle from the icy ground in front of us. Pete shut down the engine and hopped nimbly out the door. I clumsily unbuckled my seat belt and unwrapped my camera and bag from around my neck.

A gust of freezing air hit me as I stepped down from the chopper. The snow was pristine, a stunning white on a backdrop of blue sky. Rocks broke through the snow in places, but give it a month and they’ll be covered. My brother, an avid skier, would call this a bluebird day. Not a cloud in the sky. I stepped to the edge and looked down. Lake Wakatipu fell away in the distance, beyond Frankton, beyond Queenstown. On the far side of the lake, more mountains. Cecil Peak. Walters Peak. In the distance, the Devils Staircase on the shores of Lake Wakatipu.

I started snapping away on two of my cameras. I wanted detail shots of the mountain peaks. And I wanted Instagram-worthy panoramas on my phone. I also wanted to Snapchat how freaking cold I was.

Pete started taking photos for us, so its thanks to him that I have this one:

After another minute or two out here, we hustled back to the chopper. When I say it was cold, I mean it was brutally cold. My fingers were numb after just two minutes on the snow surface. The wind wasn’t too bad, but it definitely whipped around us. If you’re thinking of taking a heli ride with these guys, I’d recommend gloves.

I buckled myself in and pulled my GoPro from my bag. I have one of those cool gorilla grips on it, so I wrapped it around the hand grip on the doorframe and adjusted it for the best viewing. If I’d had more time, I would have pulled my phone out and made sure that the image was acceptable but Pete was jumping in and revving up so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

I have a video, and I will be posting it… as soon as I redo all of the music since YouTube won’t upload it due to copyrighted songs. Do you want a sneak peek? Yeah, you do. This is the original video, no music.

I’ve been in a helicopter before, at Franz Josef Glacier. But to sit on the snow-packed ground while the blades warmed up and to watch the snow begin to swirl around the feet of the helicopter as we lifted gently off the ground at the edge of a mountain… that is a feeling I will never forget. We banked to the right, cruising along the ridge line, and the mountain fell away below us. We flew over the road up to the Remarkables skifield, a steep winding road straight into the mountains. Speargrass Flats stretched out ahead of us; the Shotover River met the Karawau met the lake. We crossed valley in mere minutes. As we neared the mountains, Pete pointed out the road to Coronet Peak, one of the local skifields, another steep winding road straight into the mountains. The Shotover River thinned below us, becoming a rushing stream through the mountains. This is where the Shotover Jet boats go canyoning, if you’re curious. We circled around the mountains here and headed into the Ben Lomond area.

I hiked Ben Lomond two years ago. I freaking loved it. To see it from this perspective showed me how small I was, how vast that region is, how remote and wild everything beyond QT is.

We passed over the Moonlight Track, an old mining road. We passed over the many ridge lines that radiate from Ben Lomond. We passed over Moke Lake, a horseshoe-shaped lake in the heart of the mountains. And then we crested a ridgeline and Queenstown was on display below, in all her autumn glory.

This is how they get those amazing shots of the town and the lake and the far mountains: helicopters. It was beautiful: the snow-capped Remarkables, the dark blue lake shimmering in the afternoon sun, the town spread out, always moving, going, pulsing.

If Queenstown has a word, and I’m sure it does, its something to do with energy, motion, adrenaline, heart-pumping, thumping, bass tones, up up and away, to infinity and beyond. That’s Queenstown… and you can see that from the air.

We aimed for the runway at the airport. Part of me really wanted to fly over a plane taking off but – being realistic – they would never let that happen! We landed at The Helicopter Line pad and disembarked. Jacinda met us outside with Pete’s next group of passengers and said pointed us toward the office. After chatting with Sean for a moment about the flight… and by chatting I do mean me gushing over the flight and how *amazing* it all was, what a good day for flying, all that girly stuff… Jacinda ushered us out to the van and shuttled us back into town.

**Thanks to Emma, Brad, Jacinda, and Sean over at The Helicopter Line for being awesome. Also thanks to Pete, our pilot, for a “remarkable” flight and a plethora of information about the region.

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