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Jenney_Miller
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South Island ▷ Wanaka Region ▷ Makarora ▷
Siberia Experience
This is an amazing way to get to be amongst the New Zealand wilderness.
Myself and 4 friends did this experience and we think it is the best activity we have found. It is great value for money, $270 per person for a 25 minute flight, 3 hour walk and 30 minute jetboat ride The yellow aeroplane we travelled in allowed us to see everything as we all had window seats. We saw glaciers, mountain lakes, braided rivers and lush native bush all set amongst the Southern Alps in Mt Aspiring National Park. The flight took around 25 minutes so we saw a lot of fantastic scenery. We then landed in the Siberia Valley which is in the middle of nowhere!! We hopped out of the plane and felt dwarfed by the mountains towering around us on all sides. It was an amazing experience. The pilot then gave us a talk about the walk out, set us off in the right direction and off we went. He was really good at his job. The walk was great, we enjoyed the cute little waterfalls tumbling down toward the track and the spectacular views from different vantage points. It took us about 2.5 hours and we managed to see quite a few native birds on the way. We reached the Wilkin Valley which is also a very beautiful area. The jetboat was waiting for us at the river and whisked us back to Makarora on the amazingly clear, clean water to where we started from. This took about 30 minutes. The whole tour took us 4 hours and I would recommend it to anyone visiting New Zealand. We stayed in Wanaka and drove the 45minutes to Makarora to catch the tour.
The pilots and reservations staff were excellent, very professional but welcoming and fun. We also did a Milford Sound Flight and Cruise with the company (Southern Alps Air) who operates the Siberia Experience and is the operator of the flight portion of this fantastic Experience. We enjoyed a great coffee on the deck at the Makarora Wilderness Resort after we got back while we showed off our photos to each other and talked about what a great time we had. I will do this again on my next trip.
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South Island ▷ Wanaka Region ▷ Wanaka Township ▷
Southern Alps Air
Myself and 5 friends took this Milford Sound scenic flight and cruise from Wanaka.
We all agreed it was fantastic. The scenery was awe inspiring. The full trip took 4 hours which saved us a lot of travelling time and allowed us to do other activities instead of travelling for the 10 or so hours it would have taken by road from Wanaka and return. The scenery from the aircraft was much better than we had anticipated, there is so much to see, some of the many highlights were Mt Aspiring, and the many glaciers and waterfalls. We took a circular flight path so the return flight was completely different views, we flew the full length of the sound before we landed there and got on the boat which took us right out to the mouth of the sound and back. We were lucky to see dolphins and seals during the cruise. The service provided by this company was exceptional, they were professional, very friendly and helpful and we enjoyed their NZ light hearted humour. We found the commentary very informative and the window seats allowed us all to see everything that was out there. We enjoyed this so much that we decided to try another activity this company offers called Siberia Experience. We weren't disappointed!! I would recommend anyone who is in the area to take this Milford Sound Flight with Southern Alps Air . We all agreed that it was a highlight of our stay in NZ so far.