2022-12-27 — Impromptu Heli, and Other… Rides.

No, we just weren’t gonna do the river. Perks reviewing the place said the sand flies were just dreadful, and boy did we agree. Why get carried away by the little things, blood sucked dry, and add heaps of itchy bumps to the many already there in the hopes of digging out some hot springs pools to try and soak in?

Nope. Ain’t gonna do it.

So we headed down south further to Whataroa, where the river was blue blue blue as well, even though it was shallow, it was strikingly blue.

I really have a thing for blue/turquoise water. Just love it.

The river parking spot also housed the location of one of the heli tours that flies you all around the southern Alps.

I went down to the river, while Chase stayed on the car to write a bit.

I worked on getting one of the posts written, and then I took a swim in the river.

Oh! Gratefully, I’d woken up without pain in my ears. Yay!!! Don’t know if it came out in my sleep or if my body absorbed it or what, but it was gone. 🥳

Also, about that time, maybe the day before, I woke up for the first time without pain in my chest when sitting up, and neither did it hurt when I sneezed! 🥳

Some of me is healing! Wahoo! 🥳

After a little swim in the river and a wander up river a tad bit, I came back to the car and chatted with Chase a bit until the operators of the helicopter trips came over and offered us a big discount to take a tour flight. They were trying to fill the tour, so we decided, why not?

For any planning such a trip, only agree to go if you get to sit in the front. 🙃

It was definitely cool, but I missed most of the views I wanted to see because I was in the back right seat, and 90% of the views were on the left, and so you’re stuck seeing about 10% of the left side, 100% of the right side and make 15% of the front view.

Was it cool? Yes, but I didn’t get a single full view of the main views I was hoping to see. Whereas, those in the front saw everything, and the guy on the left saw way more than I did.

I didn’t think much of it because I figured I’d see the other stuff I missed on the way back, but we took a different way back, so I missed out on it altogether.

Food for thought to any contemplating forking over the money for the tour. Front seats only. I didn’t know to make the request. Now you do. But it stinks that anyone would pay that kind of money to not be able to see nearly anything.

Still, like I said, it was fun. 🙂 And what i could see was pretty cool.

I just wouldn’t have spent that kind of money had i realized that I’d come away without an actual full mental picture of what it was like.

Oh, and I don’t know if it was residual from the water up my sinuses thing, but it hurt for most of the helicopter ride–forehead pressure. Even with clear sinuses and gently trying to equalize the pressure by blowing out my ears, it hurt. Finally, while standing on the glacier way up high, i heard the squeal of air escaping, the reduction in pressure, and the resultant relief from pain.

Ah…

It returned on the flight down, but didn’t last as long.

I don’t have any issue with airplanes, so I’m guessing it was either leftover pressure in my head from the nose enima, or it was the super rapid change in altitude.

Oh, and bring sunglasses. It’s so bright on the glacier that I couldn’t keep my eyes open trying to take a selfie on the glacier! 🙃

After getting back from the heli ride, I suggested we go back to Hokitika Gorge to measure how high the bridge was that we were jumping off. It was a nearly 2-hour drive back north, but it would be fun to know. 🙃

So I came up with a way to measure it without a tape measure. We had some paracord, and we measured it to my height all along the length of the cord. Then we tied a stick to the end and lowered it down to the water. Anything on the 30s, and I’d have been disappointed. Anything on the 50s, and I’d have been really happy.

43.5

That was a decent height. 🙂 It looks so much higher than that when you’re standing up there looking down, but that’s about what it was–43.5 feet.

Chase, despite the chest pain, jumped a few more times, and unlike the other day, we had a couple people who saw us jump also join us.

I… hung back, not wanting to go through the same thing with water up my sinuses. My left inner bicep was also badly bruised from repeated hard slappings against the water due to poor jumping form.

But… not wanting to go all that way only to not jump, and with a bit of “encouragement” from Chase and another guy there, I did one more jump–gratefully, remembering to lean slightly back, so i didn’t get a massive water explosion up my nose, but unfortunately once again putting my left arm out and getting a very painful and hard slap against the water on the same bruised spot.

Ouch!

But with no water up my nose, it was a win. 😁

South. From there, we headed south. I wanted to check out the Southern Alps via some good hikes, especially since ai felt like I hadn’t really gotten a good solid view of them in all their majesty. We headed toward Franz Joseph, a tourist town with some good hiking trails, but on the way, I saw smoke on the floorboard at my feet. Just a few whisps.

It wasn’t long after that (but long enough that we forgot about the smoke) that the car suddenly died and rolled to a stop… in the middle of nowhere, West Coast, South Island.

😶

It was probably around 8 pm, so no stores open, not that there would be anything anywhere near us anyway, but still, no places to call for info if we could figure out the issue.

We did some troubleshooting, and we found that the fuel pump wasn’t pumping, though it had voltage, so the diagnosis was a bad fuel pump, and this one has an access under the seat, so we pulled it out. We didn’t really have any way to bench test it, that we thought of, or even that we would have done anyway, as it was clearly a fuel pump problem–getting voltage but not turning on.

At first, we planned to just stay the night there, and I’d hitchhike to Greymouth (a couple hours north) in the morning, try to get a pump, disassemble the assembly, replace the pump, reassemble the assembly without breaking anything in the meantime (the whole job much more challenging than it might sound), and then hitchhike back with the replacement part to be installed on the side of the road. 🙃

That plan changed, though. After getting in the car for an early start to the night, the fumes were too much for me, so I got out, got packed up, and at nearly 10 pm, I think, started attempting to get a ride north.

Gratefully, it didn’t take long. A nice man named Mike, a Maori, gave me a ride from where we were to Hokitika, where he had a friend (Jared) who let me sleep at his house that night–in a bed. 🙂 We had a great conversation on the ride over there, he telling me about his life and the amazing experiences he’d had all over the world working different jobs.

Once at the house, I crashed pretty quickly, setting my alarm for around 8, as they’d suggested i try the junkyard in town before going all the way to Greymouth.

And, that was the day!

Please leave every person and every place better than you found them.

Love and hugs. 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen