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ALPINE GUIDES
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The view of Mount Cook over the past days vs on a clear day<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
BBC<\/p>\n
Smoke from huge bushfires in Australia is drifting as far away as New Zealand, 2,000km (1,200 miles) away, leading to haze and a burnt smell in the air.<\/strong><\/p>\n Australia is grappling with bushfire crisis fuelled by record-breaking temperatures and months of drought.<\/p>\n The smoke first reached New Zealand’s South Island on 31 December turning skies a hazy yellow.<\/p>\n Since then, the south’s famous glaciers have vanished in haze and even North Island has seen its skies turn “eerie”.<\/p>\n At least 18 people are confirmed to have been killed by the bushfires, which have burned vast areas of several Australian states.<\/p>\n Several people are still missing and\u00a0conditions are expected to worsen over the coming weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I have never seen anything like the haze over the past 48 hours,” Arthur McBride of glacier tour company Alpine Guides told the BBC.<\/p>\n Tourist flights up to Tasman, Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are a popular way to experience New Zealand’s stunning mountain scenery.<\/p>\n But for the past days, visitors have endured a thick yellow haze, instead of the white snow and bright blue skies expected.<\/p>\n “Wednesday afternoon was particularly bad,” Mr McBride says, “and the smell of woodsmoke is still distinct.”<\/p>\n “It’s been hazy for the past 36 hours, it’s been a smoky haze,” explains Dan Burt of Mount Cook Skiplanes and Helicopters.<\/p>\n “In fact, we’ve seen some discolouration on the glacier since a few weeks ago – so that was actually already before the haze of the past days.”<\/p>\n MOUNT COOK SKIPLANES AND HELICOPTERS His company runs tour and flights to several glaciers in the region, including the main Tasman glacier.<\/p>\n Over the past days, a few trips had to be cancelled, he said.<\/p>\n “It still would have been save to fly, but it just wouldn’t have been a great experience to be up there.”<\/p>\n Australia and New Zealand are separated by around 2,000km (1,242miles) of the Tasman Sea.<\/p>\n Satellite images released by Weather Watch show exactly how the smoke was moving across the Tasman Sea from Australia’s shores to hit New Zealand.<\/p>\n The peaks around the tourist city of Queenstown, further south from the glaciers, were also covered in haze.<\/p>\n Over the past days, the people of Dunedin on South Island woke up to a noticeably darker sky, according to local media, and there’s been a strong yellowish twilight over the town.<\/p>\n Pictures from Akaroa near the south’s main city of Christchurch also showed an striking sky with the hills shrouded in haze.<\/p>\nBlue skies turned yellow<\/h2>\n
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Image captionThere’s a layer of brown dust on the usually pristine glacier<\/p><\/div>\n‘Twilight’ over Dunedin<\/h2>\n
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