Day 7 - Turbulence

Returning from fishing trip

It’s odd how people used to flying and being tossed around by turbulence and winds can be quite happy in a plane, but put them in a boat and the sea-sickness kicks in. Admittedly, we were drifting off-shore in a small fishing boat in a large swell which to the discomfort of some, was rolling and wallowing quite heavily. I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Old whalers station

The fishing platform at the back could only accommodate four people, so the six of us had to take it in turns to hold a rod with one hand the boat with another, and keep a close eye on the albatross that had seen the boat had flown in for their 'supper'. They are huge birds even with their wings folded and sitting on the sea, and have an beady eye watching us watching them. The trick was to hold the rods in the water and pull out the Blue Cod quickly before the birds can get them or indeed the bait when it goes in. One bird was too quick for one of our party and dived down attacking fish and line, in one go! The larger fish were kept, the smaller ones put back and with a haul of 15 fish to take back to GHS, we headed for Ulva Island.

Departing Stewart Island overhead Oban

Ulva is small privately owned protected island in the Paterson Inlet managed by the NZ Department of Conservation. Free of predators the Island is the home of Stewart Island’s former Post Office, located centrally at a time when there were no roads and the small population and visiting boats were widely distributed around the isles. Nowadays the small population lives close to the hamlet of Oban and the old post office has long since closed. Once on Ulva Island we were able to enjoy a walk around some of the footpaths, there are no roads, and you soon appreciate the protected natural habitat and dense forest. Back on the boat we headed further up the Paterson Inlet to look at an old whaling repair station on what was simply a quiet sandy cove. Whilst Stewart Island's population of boat builders was originally spread around harvesting and milling wood, these gave way to whaling in the early 1920's with the establishment of a repair yard for the Norwegian whaling fleet’s service ships. Now all that is left is the old slipway rails, an old steam boiler from a failed salvage attempt in the sea, and anchors of the long abandoned operation.

Blow Hole on coast at Tatuku Peninsular

With our Blue Cod safely stored it was back to our aircraft for the flight back to GHS. We decided to go back a different way and few up the east coast past the Tautuku Peninsular with its caves and blowholes to Nugget Point before turning inland to fly the Clutha River all the way up to Alexandra.

The coastal lowlands soon gave way to the increasingly high mountains after we passed Beaumont with the Old Man Range on our left rising to just under 6,000ft.

The Herc following us in

Although we would continue to fly with a local guide, we were required to complete a bi-annual flight review as part of our NZ licence validation. So today we were flying with Nick Taylor who was to do the reviews. Mine was to be on the way back and started with an EFATO (engine failure after take-off) straight after take-off from Ryan’s Creek. Options were limited but for a small beach in Oban as the aiming point, I would probably have made it! My PFL was also over the coast and gave me an opportunity to fly at a little over 150ft along the coast after completing the manoeuvre. Steep turns and stalls complete we landed at Alexandra just ahead of one of the RNZAF Hercules based there during their training exercise.

The training fleet of Kingairs

With my BFR complete it was now Fred’s turn. Now whilst being quite comfortable switching between boats and planes I am less comfortable being in the back while other people are carrying out steep turns and unusual manoeuvres. I like to be able to see the horizon and be close to the controls. So I opted out of the exercise and spent an hour by the side of the runway chatting to the RNZAF crews and watching the aircraft, something that would not be easy in the UK. It was all very relaxed. 

Fred completing her PFL

By coincidence as we first taxied in there was Union Jack emblazoned on one of the flight crew. It turned out he was on secondment to the RNZAF from of one the RAF’s former Nimrod Squadrons, 120, based at Kinloss in Scotland. Initially there to work with the maritime reconnaissance squadron, and as a QFI, he is now training RNZAF pilots on Beech Kingairs. This was the first of two coincidences at Alexandra.

The second coincidence was the ATC controller who we had spoken to a few days prior happened to be on duty and was also an old friend of our of our guide pilots. Appreciating we had been aware of their exercise prior to transiting past them he apologised for his reminder. After pulling his leg about him wanting to have someone to talk to we had a long chat about what they were up to. 

With tests complete, aircraft refuelled it was quick hop up to GHS via Cromwell and Thomson’s Gorge for our blue cod supper. The last surprise of the day came as we came to cross the ridge to drop into Tarras. The winds had picked up and we started to suffer bad turbulence, so much so that our guide took the controls from Fred. At that point we picked up an updraft that took us from about 3,500ft to 7,200ft in about 15 – 20 seconds. It was as smooth as a lift even though the VSI (vertical speed indicator) hit the stops. Even our guide had to admit he had never seen anything like it!!....nor had we. 

The Blue Cod were excellent!