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If the person who was in Room M9 of the Rydges hotel on the 10th December is reading this log I can only apologise for the rude awakening they must have received this morning (the walls are a bit thin at the Rydges). My alarm went off as expected at 4am but it took a while to find the damned off switch and I in fact found the snooze switch instead. So I went for a shower and then, nine minutes later, heard over the shower noise a loud beeping noise. Aaaarrgh! 'Shut up, you horrible cheap hotel alarm clock, you!' Nine minutes later I hear a loud blast of radio - yup, I've not turned the alarm off at all - just switched it from buzzer to radio. What can I say? I'm not very good at getting up at 4am when I'm on holiday and have had too many late nights.
I foolishly think it will all be worthwhile to get some sunrise photo's of the mountains around Queenstown called, unpretentiously, 'The Remarkables'. At 4.45am, the planned pickup time (or so I thought) I get a message from reception - Sunrise Balloons will be picking us up at 5.15am. At 5.10am I watch the sun rise over the mountains and think 'sunrise from a balloon isn't going to happen!'. I'm quite right. Indeed, it's more than an hour after sunrise that we actually get to the site thanks to our being second on the list of a whole bunch of hotels that have to be visited by our pick-up shuttle, and it's disappointing to find that they haven't even started inflating the balloon when we arrive with the sun already climbing the sky.
		To say we all feel ripped off is putting it mildly, but although a Chinese-American lady talks loudly about how sick she is of this 'Kiwi indifference to promises and lack of organisation', not just on this trip but apparently throughout her whole tour (she's not on the Red Carpet tour) nobody dares directly bring up the issue with our guide, who's disarmingly friendly banter effectively challenges us to complain without looking like whiners. We all whine, some not very quietly, to each other instead! When we (at last!) arrive at the actual site we are greeted with a "Well I hope you saw the sunrise because it's gone now". It's unclear whether we're being blamed for this unfortunate set of circumstances or apologised to! Unfortunately the site is nowhere near Heliworks, where I need to be at 8.30am, otherwise, not having paid in advance, I'd have quit the trip under the rules of 'truth in advertising' - I've only joined the trip to get some sunrise shots from the best possible vantage point. Getting up at 4am to find the balloon actually leaves the ground more than a couple of hours later is annoying, to say the least! As it turns out the trip is otherwise well enough presented so that most don't feel too hacked off at the cost (just over £100 a head) but they do feel cheated, which they demonstrate by refusing to sign the company's guest book rather than being downright rude in it. The balloon ride is tranquil and slow (a bit like being 'under canopy' when skydiving) and my worries about not having gloves (it's cold here first thing in the morning) are soon alleviated when I find myself next to the burners. The heat is pretty intense and I find myself sniffing to see if the hair, or what little of it remains, on the top of my head is burning! There are fourteen of us split across four compartments in the balloon basket, but there's enough room to move around and it's quite comfy. About half way through the flight we all line up on one side of the balloon to strike a pose for a rather Heath Robinson -like device: a small Nikon digital camera that is mounted on a wooden swing that is released from the side of the balloon by our pilot. I'm sceptical that the picture taken will have come out but am proved wrong when the photo is delivered to my hotel that evening. Like most things here photo's here are extra cost and not cheap and costs for souvenirs like this need to be factored into your costs. One neat thing that Sunrise Balloons do is put each day's photo's up on their web site. Money for most on the tour, at this stage, is tight and my advice to anyone coming to New Zealand is to save as much as possible for Queenstown. You get the chance to do some incredible things here and it would be a shame to spend so much money to get here and then miss out on many of the unique opportunities because of lack of funds. There is a bit of an adrenalin rush just after we take off and float over a lake. I'm watching the tree-line and we're floating down quite fast. I start worrying - not about my inability to swim very well in freezing cold water, but about the cost of my camera and the fact its insurance has just run out. The pilot is sending blasts of hot air into the balloon, but nothing's happening! I am convinced we are going to drown, but have not understood the way these things work, with a very long delay occurring between heat being applied and its effects causing the balloon to rise. We make it across the lake with no problems, rising quite fast a few minutes later. Phew! Our landing, I suspect, is a bit of a botch-up. The bus that brought us here rushes across a field, leaving messy tyre marks in an otherwise unblemished field to try and greet us. Obviously, from the reaction of the sheep when they hear the heat being blasted into the balloon, this isn't the first time we've landed in their field, but... We land very gently in an adjacent field surrounded by fencing, and on the side of a hill by some trees with just one corner of the basket on the hill and short blasts of heat being applied to keep us horizontal and avoid us all spilling out. The two helpers who've stayed on the ground have to clamber the fence and catch a rope and then pull us along like a kite to the field they've actually parked in. Ride over, it's time for the champagne breakfast with croissants. All very pleasant, but two of us are getting jittery about the time it's all taking. We're late for a helicopter trip that four other people are also going on and who we'll be holding up. The repeated assurances that we'd be at Heliworks by 8.30am prove groundless, and we end up having to be persistent and even rude to speed things up and eventually get dropped off at 9.15am. Not impressed! Fortunately Heliworks are patient and more than understanding, and our companions who've been kept waiting don't seem as stressed out as we are. Our pilot 'Alfie' explains the options available to us on our planned 3 hour helicopter trip. I mention the opening scene of 'The Two Towers' where a helicopter swings over mountains and ask our pilot if he's seen the movie. 'I filmed it!' he announces, and I realise we've got lucky and landed the pilot who flew Peter Jackson around and did most of the helicopter filming. He later explains that in fact the opening shots are of two separate mountain ranges - the Remarkables and Mount Earnslaw. To describe the next three hours plus as 'awesome' is putting it mildly. With hotel check-out in less than 15 minutes, and a long flight to the UK ahead as I'm writing this log I can't go into detail here, but the trip is everything and a lot more than I (or any of those with me) have expected, and my expectations were certainly high after doing a helicopter tour of The Grand Canyon last year. This turns out to be light years ahead of that! Heliworks do us proud with a flight that's a lot longer than the '2 hours 6 minutes' we've been told and I really can't recommend them and Alfie Speight, our pilot, highly enough! Alfie proves to not only be a great pilot with intimate knowledge of the loctions used for the movies, but one of the most patient human beings on the planet (and that's all I'm saying at this stage!) Our trip is one of the most exhillerating experiences of my life. At one stage two great rocks come zooming up to us (still pictures can't capture the speed we're going at) - and instead of flying over them he flies between them. Woo hoo! Time after time we swoop over ridges very closely to reveal jaw-dropping chasms below. What we see makes the opening of 'The Two Towers' look weak and puny by comparison! It's an awesome experience and a thrill for all of us except the poor fellow traveller who gets motion sickness (I normally suffer from this but find the helicopter a very smooth ride). The poor girl can easily identify with Sean Bean who apparently walked to one of the mountain locations the two days they were used because he, as Alfie puts it, 'just doesn't get on with these things I guess'. For my part, I couldn't believe how gentle the ride was. We effectively get a speeded-up version of the whole tour we've completed by coach, but with much better views. Alfie is more than accommodating with letting us stop where we want, insisting on taking photo's of us or lining up the helicopter for the best shots. In short, the perfect pilot and tour guide! When our poor fellow-traveller is sick he tidies up without fuss at the next stop. He also keeps us entertained with stories of the filming trips, how hard Peter and Barrie worked on the movies, how crazy the hours were etc etc. Well, hopefully, you get the drift. I'm still stoked about the trip over a week later! If you do just one thing when you visit New Zealand take a trip with Heliworks (who aren't on the usual brochure list at Te Anau where I tried to book the trip) but are reachable at heliworks.co.nz or by phone on (03) 441-4011. As I said earlier, I really can't recommend them highly enough! If I return to New Zealand, as hoped for in a year or two's time, a custom trip with these guys will be top of the planning agenda! With the helicopter trip over, I'm not sure where the afternoon went - checking emails, processing photo's and writing web logs I suspect. I have a very pleasant dinner in 'town' with two of my fellow Brit travellers, together with Nikki who considers hereself a 'token Brit' because she's started using her fork the way Brits do!!! A very pleasant evening and I'm really not looking forward to the departure from Queenstown tomorrow afternoon!
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Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk