Transalpine train and beyond

I hate early mornings but somehow managed to get up in time to meet fellow travellers and catch the right coach. Quite a varied bunch from Germany, Sweden, Australia, USA, Canada and England predominantly. Two young girls, one a daughter travelling with her Mum and the other a German girl currently working in Zurich who is thinking of coming to NZ to work, rest of us considerably older!!  We started by boarding the train through the plains and half way through the alps, the scenery is quite stunning but getting good photo's is not so easy particularly as weather cloudy and rainy most of the time ( well that's my excuse!)

We then continued by coach passing a roundabout which includes the train track (so dodging tourist campervans and trains!)

to the Franz Joseph Glacier where I did manage to get some photo's.

The weather continued cloudy so no opprtunity for helicopter flight up to top of glacier, but started to clear up while we had group dinner as first night and so flights booked for first thing in the morning.
Woke up to lovely day with clear blue skies and warm at least down in the valley.  It was my first time in a helicopter and seems more like being in a hot air balloon as there is little feeling of going up and down and we did go very high, landing on the top of the Fox glacier before descending again, about 30 mins flying and 10 mins or so on the glacier, proof below!!!

We then continued to the coast for a bit before reaching the Haast river where I joined a jet boat ride. The width of the river bed and hieght of the mountains either side is quite majestic and no real photos without fancy lenses can do it justice, but this gives a clue.

We did some 360 turns before disembarking but on the whole rather more informative, gentle and longer (over an hour) than the thrill type jet boat rides. All this before lunch!!  Fairly lengthy journey through yet more majestic mountains toward Queenstown, passing a couple of huge lakes,

waterfalls

and then descending to extremely swanky accommodation, I have a room that would sleep  about 10 people, airmchairs, enormous bed etc. and looking out over stream. Only problem with that is sandflies which bite so everyone out with swathes of insect repellant to keep them and everyone else at bay!
Day to do as we like tomorrow so gentle explore of Queenstown before we visit a mountain restaurant for supper.