Day 6 – Stewart Island

Lake Wanaka

Overhead Queenstown

Kingston Flyer

Day 6 saw us heading down to the very south to Stewart Island.  The route was to take us via Mandeville for a lunch stop and then on to Gore for fuel and finally Ryan’s Creek,  just above Oban on Stewart Island. 

Fred flew the first leg to Mandeville.  The route south took us out to Wanaka and then down the Cardrona River and over the Crown Saddle to the Kawarau River.  Turning west we entered Lake Wakatipu via the Frankton (Queenstown) airport overhead, then turned south to fly the lower half of Wakatipu to Kingston.  Much of this section was at relatively low level because of the cloud base and was at times bit bumpy.  At Kingston we climbed and as we did so the Kingston Flyer, an old steam engine that runs between Kingston and Fairlight Station, a distance of about 15km came towards us.   We dropped back down to get some shots of the train.  From Fairlight the mountains begin to reduce in height and the valley opens up to the lowland areas of southern South Island.  The jagged peaks of the west and central areas, where the land is rich pasture for sheep grazing, give way to the rolling countryside and flat-lands of the south of the island.    

Props in manufacture

Climbing back up we followed the main road that runs down to Invercargill as far as Lumsden before turning south west and flying over Balfour and Riversdale then dropping into Mandeville.

Comet being restored (not the UK version!)

Wing Section

Engine Shop

Apart from having an exceptionally good restaurant and café, Mandeville also boasts an aviation museum and a commercially run restoration workshop for old aircraft. Croydon Aircraft Company was established in 1986 by Colin and Maeva Smith, as a restoration facility for wood and fabric type 1920-30's aeroplanes.  http://www.croydonaircraft.com/ Although we arrived on a Sunday, Flyinn had arranged for it to be opened and allowed us to look around unattended.  It was an Aladdin’s cave of partly restored aircraft, engine shops, spares and formers for various aircraft cladding.  The formers themselves were meticulously put together.    They also made their own propellers; we were able to see the various laminations before being bonded together, a bonded but unshaped prop and one partly finished.  We could have spent hours there, but needed to press on for fuel.  It is somewhere we would like to go back to.

Gore is not the normal sort of airfield.  Apart from a couple of aero clubs it has an agricultural business and what looks like oversized Pawnee, but is in fact an Air Tractor, 502B.  It was certainly of agricultural proportions.  This one appeared to have been adapted for dusting.

Air Tractor at Gore

Short Final Ryan's Creek

With tanks now full of fuel it was lifejackets on for the hop over to Stewart Island and Ryan’s Creek aerodrome, some 30km from Stirling point.  At mid-point over the water we heard that an Islander was on its way over to drop off passengers at Ryan’s Creek.  We were concerned we would end up circuiting to allow the commercial service in but managed to sneak in ahead of it and clear the runway.  It was to be back half an our later after pcikign up passenges on the beach at Mason Bay, before heading back to Invercargill.  

Parking is limited at Ryan’s Creek and with six or so planes on the ground the place is full.  We managed to find a tie down spot on the small apron, though one of our aircraft had to park off one end of the runway.    With covers on and all tied down we checked into the South Sea Hotel (red roofed building in photo) and had a chance to explore the foreshore, the small harbour of Oban and some of the surrounding area.  We had an early dinner as the next morning we were off fishing for blue cod and exploring by boat.  http://www.stewartisland.co.nz/

Oban Habour