I had to head back to Auckland to finalise some paperwork for the aircraft. This was a bit inconvenient, but at least New Zealand is not too huge a country to fly the length of, and the trip could be completed in just a few hours. I took an “Uber” out to Air Milford, where I chatted for a while with Ant and the others about the current weather conditions. It was blowing hard from the west, condition which cause…
My next destination was to be the city of Queenstown. New Zealand’s main city, Auckland, was currently under a travel ban and I was therefore expecting Queenstown to be fairly quiet; my suspicions turned out to be correct. I still had plenty of fuel on board after my flight down from the North Island so I set straight off from Nelson, on a direct track to Queenstown. The terrain south of Nelson rapidly becomes mountainous. On this morning there was…
A few days later it was time to head out of Auckland towards New Zealand’s South Island. First though I’d spend a few nights with a friend in Rotorua, as well as visiting the “Hobbiton” filming location from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. The good weather was back and the sun beat down on me as I pulled Planey out of the hangar and closed the doors behind us. Even late winter in North Island New Zealand…
After two weeks in quarantine it felt very strange to be standing on the street in Auckland, not wearing a mask and free to go on with my day. I jumped on a bus back out to the international airport to go and collect my rental car; given the lack of tourists some truly excellent deals had been available. Half way to the airport the bus broke down. Things were off to a typical 2020 start. After collecting my car…
I returned my rental car at opening time the next day and took an Uber to Warbirds. With a few more days in New Zealand than expected, due to travel restriction caused by the COVID-19 virus, I had decided to use the opportunity to visit the Chatham Islands. This small, remote archipelago of islands lies 500 miles off the east coast of New Zealand and is politically a part of New Zealand itself. The first settlers were the Moriori people,…
The following day dawned with much lower winds. Conditions looked good for a flight to Pitt Island before heading back to the mainland. After breakfast Greg provided a lift out to the airport and I met up again with Dylan the 206 pilot. He helped with pulling the 182 out of the hangar and offered up use of the Air Chathams computer to file the flight plan. The Convair was parked up on the ramp having cargo loaded before its…
The next couple of weeks were to prove a strange time. I was supposed to be returning to work but the COVID-19 travel restrictions were starting to bite, and travel to my work place in Iraq had just been stopped. Over the next few days I spent a while with Planey at Warbirds, doing a thorough empty and organise of the interior. I was able to identify quite a quantity of items that would no longer be needed, and packed…
Dad collected me in the morning and drove me back out to the airstrip. There was a low overcast hanging over the whole area; we were very glad that we’d taken our scenic flight the day before, instead of the original plan of doing it this morning. I took off to the north and started retracing my steps towards Ardmore; my first stop, however, would be Hamilton for some fuel. I snuck along below the cloud, keeping well clear of…
Our lovely hosts at the AirBNB gave us a lift to the airfield, accompanied by their teenage daughter. Their daughter was interested in aviation; she had been gliding fairly often until a wing separated from the glider one day. She miraculously survived the crash, spiraling down 1,500ft with one wing like a sycamore seed and walking away with only minor injuries. She’d been taking a bit of a break from flying since then, which was entirely understandable! She gave me…
It was a pleasure to wake up and not need to be heading to the airport for another flight. The flying is always enjoyable but a day off every now and then helps to manage the fatigue and keep the pace sensible. We had a relaxed breakfast with the Drakes before relocating the aircraft around the side of the house to the tie-downs; the wind direction had shifted and Bruce had warned us that wind strength could increase without warning,…