This post continues from yesterday with pictures from my helicopter ride above Franz Josef. Along the way, we got to see Mts. Cook and Tasman, and the Franz Josef, Fox, and Tasman Glaciers.

Today’s title quote is from Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to scale Mt. Everest in 1953. He was also a New Zealander and appears on the $5 bill. He is the only New Zealander to appear on Kiwi currency in his own lifetime.

Hillary died in 2008 but not before beating Peter Jackson in a 2005 Reader’s Digest poll to be named “New Zealand’s most trusted individual.” I doubt Jackson cared as he had already fan-boyed hard on meeting Hillary, who visited the Lord of the Rings set at one point. Jackson pulled out a $5 bill and asked Hillary to sign it, and Hillary complied.

The South Ridge of Mt. Cook was named Hillary Ridge in 2011 as Hillary and two friends were the first to successfully climb it in 1948.

Title quote: Sir Edmund Hillary