High above Wellington

So after our grand tour of the South Island with Jamie and Amy Stark, the four of us came back to Wellington. Our idea was to show them around the little city we proudly call home. But actually they ended up showing us around -- by signing us up for a helicopter tour!

The four of us climbed in and lifted off from Queen's Wharf in the heart of our CBD. Amy wisely thought I might be a little scared to fly in a helicopter (it just doesn't make any sense to me how they fly), so she decided I'd be in charge of photography in hopes it would distract me.

Although it meant I'd be in the front seat next to our pilot, it worked well. I took about 240 pics in the space of 35 minutes! Don't worry, you don't have to see all of them. We even got to use those cool headsets to talk to each other.

I immediately started snapping pics when we took off and banked hard to the left. Holy cow -- I never realized this is how helicopters manage to steer.

Our route took us north of the city, and when we mentioned our street to our pilot, he flew a little circle over our home.

Then of course came some amazing views of the coastline.

The little sheep look like dots from above.

We have a lot of wind turbines near Wellington. Jake made a comment to the pilot about that scene in Mission Impossible that involved choppers flying in and around turbines, and the pilot made a sudden move to drop the chopper down closer. He was just joking, and he immediately brought us back to level, but my heart was already in my throat. Everyone had a good laugh, and I tried to pretend it hadn't just scared the bejesus out of me. Thanks for that Jake. :)

The best view of the day was seeing the South Island so clearly across Cook Strait. It's usually much harder to see.

I did manage to overcome my nerves and really enjoyed the amazing views. What made it really special to us was that this is our home and we knew it so well. We could point out a lot of the walking tracks we'd been on, saw the red rocks area where the seal colony is, recognised the river in the Hutt Valley we've gone on runs along. I'm not sure this would have meant so much had we done it when we first arrived.

Thanks, Jamie and Amy, for taking us on such an amazing adventure! You guys are a blast, and we're so happy you could come out and enjoy this amazing country with us.