Milford Helicopters Ltd. Grand Tour

I would like to announce that after my experience yesterday, I am going to change careers and become a helicopter pilot instead of whatever the hell I was originally planning; I can't remember.

Yesterday was our third day of awesome, sunny weather and, since the kayaking trip I wanted to go on was full again, I decided to try my luck in helicopter flights. The benefits of working at Milford Lodge continues: since I sell tickets for helicopter flights, it is Milford Helicopters Ltd.'s best interest to take me up in one (or many???) of their flights so that I can sell their products better. I am able to do this for free if I wait for a spare seat in a flight that is already leaving. Some people just call and hope that they call them back when there is a spare seat but, due to our cell phone-less situation here in Fiordland National Park, I decided I would be better off waiting there. I also thought it would be cool to talk to the pilots if I got a chance. So, I packed my backpack with food, water, and a book and was prepared to wait several hours before the opportunity arose to hop on a flight.

There was a group of 5 Australian people who just finished walking the Milford Track, and I was talking to one of them (I think her name was Julie) while they were waiting for their flight and I told her why I was there. She asked me whether I would drive them back to the lodge if they let me on their flight with them. I said, "hell yeah I will!" The helicopter we took, I gathered, is called a B2, but I don't know what company makes it. It seats 7 people tightly– thee in front, four in back– and the guy working at Milford Helicopters Ltd. was reluctant to let me go with them since it was potentially going to be so cramped. This is where befriending Julie came in handy. She convinced the rest of the group into letting me come along. Thanks Toyota Estima! You have already come in handy countless times and I haven't even owned you for a month yet!! So the Milford Helicopters Ltd. guy let me go along as long as I sat in the middle so the paying customers got the window seats. I told him I would hang from the heli ski by one arm if it got me on the flight (actually, I didn't tell him that. I just came up with that now). I enthusiastically agreed to sit in the middle and the deal was complete.


This is the woman I sat next to; she sat between me and her husband. Before we took off, she warned me that she was afraid of flying and would probably nervously grab onto me several times throughout the flight. I assured her that it would be fine because I would be throwing up all over her anyway... (also kidding; I told her I wouldn't mind if she grabbed onto me). She surely kept to her word. As we were flying, the pilot would approach a mountain ridge and it would look like we were going to fly right into it, but he was really just following the terrain upward so that we would pop up over the top. The view of the other side would hit you and you would feel like you were going to roll over the top and drop down the other side like a roller coaster. It was then that she would tense up and grab her husband and my arms while inhaling through her teeth. But the pilot would just let us down lightly only to repeat the scary event at the next mountain ridge.


I realized that I didn't get any picture of Sutherland Falls proper, so I found this picture on the web. We flew over the falls, did an awesomely tight turn over Lake Quill (which freaked out the woman next to me), and plopped down right next to the falls, on the left bank.


We crawled over to an outlook (making sure not to get decapitated by the helicopter) to get a beautiful view of Lake Quill, the short river to the falls, and the surrounding mountains.


This is our helicopter, rotors still turning, waiting for us on the side of the mountain. Isn't it cute? It looks like it is smiling at us and wiggling its ears. Aw!


This is the crevasse from which the water plummets as it falls over Sutherland Falls.


Here I am posing in front of the beautiful mountain ranges seen from the falls. The pilot told us not to go too far that way or we would plummet to our dooms. I didn't.


Then we flew over to Mt. Tutoko and landed on a glacier. Mt. Tutoko is the tallest mountain in Fiordland National Park. Here I am posing in front of the peak of the mountain. Whenever I pose by myself in a photo, I never know what to do with my arms so I end up just letting them hang down awkwardly. Has anyone noticed that?!?


"Hey there, helicopter. Flying in the sky so fancy free."


"Hey there, helicopter. Why do all the pilots just pass you by? Could it be the way you fly or is it that you have no wings?"


"You're always sitting there at the most awkward times. So shed those dowdy feathers and fly - a little bit."

[Close eyes for Instrumental Interlude]

Fin