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Christchurch; NZCH-NZCH
Another hire car this morning. I think we were lucky and spoiled with the Hertz rental; Europcar provided us a well-used Honda with 70k kms on the clock and a few scratches and dents. It's also an automatic; we didn't particularly want one, but that seemed to be what came up with the relevant rental category. (Incidentally, I chose rental places based on their location being convenient to where we would be at the time. Next time I think there's a certain value in hiring from the airport, even if it is more expensive.)
Anyway.
I hadn't flown for 18 months, but today I broke that spell. I had been in touch with Canterbury Aero Club to make a booking; they operate out of Christchurch International with a couple of satellite fields in the vicinity, and run a major commercial training school as well as a flying club.
And so there I was, on the apron at NZCH. Our instructor let me handle most of the radio and flying myself though I was unfamiliar with the glass-fit of the PA28-181. He was very laid back; almost too laid back, I thought, as he looked like he was dozing while we waited at the hold for our turn to take off! (The commercials get priority; some things are constant.) Nevertheless we got to see the city - the Canterbury plains are so flat! - and went over the hills to see Lyttelton and some of the Banks Peninsula.
Banks looks at first glance like it might be a load of fjords, but there wasn't enough mountain to have provided a glacier to carve them; turns out it used to be a volcano that blew itself apart violently. The Pacific rushed in, forming a handful of natural harbours amongst incredible scenery. Most of what we saw of Banks is rugged and desolate, not much use for farming. Despite the cloudy day the water up the bays was a beautiful greeny-blue colour, much more appealing than the grey it usually seems back in Blighty.
Now, I have no mountain flying experience, but I had an appreciation that Banks wasn't going to be quite like flying in the open air. There was going to be orographic lift, turbulence and perhaps standing waves. OK, Banks only reaches about 3000' amsl at its higher points, but I still found my instincts wondering which side of each valley was going to be least turbulent and thinking about escape routes in case the engine failed. We went part-way around Banks, flew up one of the inlets, then turned and flew down another. There were some clouds coming and going which we flew around, then back for home passing over the Christchurch gondola site.
I had hoped to take photos on the flight, but there was no opportunity as almost all the flying was left to me. Instead C took several dozen, which I hope to be able to link to when they're posted...
It was only 19C in Chch today. This is the sort of summer temperature I can relate to :-)
This evening we went on the gondola ride.
This climbs from low level to the line of the ridge between Christchurch and Lyttelton (Chch's deep-water port) - it's something like 1km horizontally and 500m vertically. Spare a thought for the 1850s settlers who had to hike their way over the ridge after arriving by ship... We were there just in time for sunset; 
while it was cloudy we saw the odd snatch of deep red sun above the false horizon and stunning pastel hues in the gaps in the clouds. Beneath us Chch was lighting herself up for the night and I was reminded of how different land looks by dark from aloft - instinctively different, yet instinctively the same place as you see a different set of familiar landmarks.
Another hire car this morning. I think we were lucky and spoiled with the Hertz rental; Europcar provided us a well-used Honda with 70k kms on the clock and a few scratches and dents. It's also an automatic; we didn't particularly want one, but that seemed to be what came up with the relevant rental category. (Incidentally, I chose rental places based on their location being convenient to where we would be at the time. Next time I think there's a certain value in hiring from the airport, even if it is more expensive.)
Anyway.
I hadn't flown for 18 months, but today I broke that spell. I had been in touch with Canterbury Aero Club to make a booking; they operate out of Christchurch International with a couple of satellite fields in the vicinity, and run a major commercial training school as well as a flying club.
And so there I was, on the apron at NZCH. Our instructor let me handle most of the radio and flying myself though I was unfamiliar with the glass-fit of the PA28-181. He was very laid back; almost too laid back, I thought, as he looked like he was dozing while we waited at the hold for our turn to take off! (The commercials get priority; some things are constant.) Nevertheless we got to see the city - the Canterbury plains are so flat! - and went over the hills to see Lyttelton and some of the Banks Peninsula.
Banks looks at first glance like it might be a load of fjords, but there wasn't enough mountain to have provided a glacier to carve them; turns out it used to be a volcano that blew itself apart violently. The Pacific rushed in, forming a handful of natural harbours amongst incredible scenery. Most of what we saw of Banks is rugged and desolate, not much use for farming. Despite the cloudy day the water up the bays was a beautiful greeny-blue colour, much more appealing than the grey it usually seems back in Blighty.
Now, I have no mountain flying experience, but I had an appreciation that Banks wasn't going to be quite like flying in the open air. There was going to be orographic lift, turbulence and perhaps standing waves. OK, Banks only reaches about 3000' amsl at its higher points, but I still found my instincts wondering which side of each valley was going to be least turbulent and thinking about escape routes in case the engine failed. We went part-way around Banks, flew up one of the inlets, then turned and flew down another. There were some clouds coming and going which we flew around, then back for home passing over the Christchurch gondola site.
I had hoped to take photos on the flight, but there was no opportunity as almost all the flying was left to me. Instead C took several dozen, which I hope to be able to link to when they're posted...
It was only 19C in Chch today. This is the sort of summer temperature I can relate to :-)
This evening we went on the gondola ride.
This climbs from low level to the line of the ridge between Christchurch and Lyttelton (Chch's deep-water port) - it's something like 1km horizontally and 500m vertically. Spare a thought for the 1850s settlers who had to hike their way over the ridge after arriving by ship... We were there just in time for sunset; while it was cloudy we saw the odd snatch of deep red sun above the false horizon and stunning pastel hues in the gaps in the clouds. Beneath us Chch was lighting herself up for the night and I was reminded of how different land looks by dark from aloft - instinctively different, yet instinctively the same place as you see a different set of familiar landmarks.