Day 1 - Mount Cook

The plan was to be picked up underneath the glider hanging in the main hall at Queenstown airport and from there fly up to Geordie Hill Station (GHS) the sheep and cattle farm that's to be our base with Flyinn for the next 11 days.  We were met by our guide, Ivan, a senior flying instructor and examiner based out of Wanaka, who was to introduce us to mountain flying.  Now I have to confess that when I heard we were going to get a guide I was slightly under-impressed by the idea of having our hand held all the way through this trip.  I know how to fly a plane and navigate, and can read the weather!  Writing this after four days of intensive mountain flying I have to confess I would not have been without one. The UK may be congested, but mountain flying is something else.  More later.

The short hop up to GHS was about 15 - 20 minutes and new to the aircraft, and more importantly new to the terrain, having a local expert (and aerobatic display ace) in the right seat, I felt as though I was flying like a novice pilot.  He said the first hour is always hard work and he was right as flying the C172 quickly become as intuitive as our C182.  The plane is well maintained and though not in the flush of youth purrs along nicely, the Lycoming a very different sound to the Continental.

Mt Cook from 10,500 ft

A few circuits of the rough, tussocky sloping farm strip made me promise not to criticise bumpy grass strips in the UK.  Coffee and scones later, and with a gin clear sky we were off.  The idea of a slow introduction to mountain flying was not going to happen.  "Fly when the weather is good", and we did.  So we were off to Mount Cook, a long and slow climb up to 10,500ft, flying up valleys with glaciers each side to circuit the Mt Cook summit.  The views were stunning though coupled by the ever present thought in mountain flying of where you might put a plane down if it became necessary.  The one thing we are not taught in the PPL is glacier landings!

As we neared the summit with a light easterly breeze we started the Mt Cook "circuit" with our guide saying "we will see how it goes,it might be a bit interesting".  This was the height of understatement as we came round in to the western lea of the mountain we picked up the turbulence and got bounced around in a way that I could not have imagined.  Power back, nose up, speed down was the only way to deal with it - we emerged shaken but not stirred. Back into clean air, we were heading down to Mt Cook airfield for lunch.

Finding a gap in the valley cloud cover, only VFR is allowed with the large immovable objectives at high level, we dropped down over lake http://www.flyinn.co.nz/Pukaki, with its brilliant blue from the glacial waters and headed back up the valley to land at  Mt Cook (elev 2153ft) .  As with our trip to southern Africa, most flying is self announcing to let other pilots know where you are and what your intentions are and there was little else traffic around. 

ZK-TRS on the apron at Mt Cook

Departing Mt Cook airfield

Lunch in Mt Cook  (Pop: 300) and we had a chance to look at the museum which celebrates much of Sir Edmund Hillary's work.  He used Mt Cook for a lot of his training before heading for Everest.  A quick walk around town and look back up at what we had just flown around. It was an amazing view - from both perspectives.  

Taking off from Mt Cook we headed towards Omarama with Mrs C at the controls.  Omarama is regarded as the world's best soaring site, though there were only a couple of gliders up while we were there.


A short stop for fuel and coffee at the famous Dagmar's cafe and I flew the short hop back to Geordie Hill and dinner with Matt and Jo, our hosts and owners of FlyinnNZ and the station.