NZ Air Race Daily Photo Journal

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Sunday April 11, 2004

     No Flight – Rest Day, Queenstown (Gala Dinner and Prizegiving)

Everything is now officially over! We just finished the dinner and prizegiving and tomorrow brings flights home for almost all of us. And the winners are:

Speed Racing – Team EZE Pull in their Cessna 172R

Precision Racing – Team Royal NZ Air Force in their Beech King Air

We congratulate them both! We would also like to thank everyone involved with making this race happen, we all enjoyed flying over New Zealand slow and low – the only way!

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Saturday April 10, 2004

     No Flight – Rest Day, Queenstown

As planned, we spent the entire day at the Warbirds Over Wanaka airshow about two hour drive outside Queenstown. The weather, though windy and cold, cooperated by not raining heavily – but even the chill could not detract from the awesome presence of the airshow. We spent the day browsing the tents and watching the performers. As a sponsor of the Air Race, we enjoyed a private tent there, which came in very handy when it did start to drizzle. At night, most of us traveled into downtown Queenstown to grab dinner and do some last minute shopping. One more day to go!

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Friday, April 09, 2004

     Leg 1: Te Anau – Invercargill

     Leg 2: Invercargill – Cromwell

Bittersweet. We are here in Queenstown after traveling a dozen days and many more stops through all of New Zealand – but the race has come to an end. The day began with frost and ice covering the airplanes at race start in Te Anau. After the last morning briefing and the sun melting the way, we headed out through the sounds around the Alps and out to the coast, eventually landing in Invercargill for lunch.

At lunch, we found out that the weather around Stewart Island was not good, and that leg was thus cancelled. We followed the original route to the finish in Crowell, and the planes split up from there, with most repositioning to Queenstown airport as many of us are attending Warbirds Over Wanaka, an annual air show held this weekend. The one last item left on the docket happens Sunday night, when we have the official end of race banquet. There the winners will be revealed, the prizes awarded, and the goodbyes made final. Stay tuned.

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Thursday April 8, 2004

     No Flight - Rest Day, Te Anau

A trip to Milford Sound was always planned for today, but last night we decided to cancel the bus ride up there and fly the 206. What a great decision! The view of the Alps flying there hugging the walls was wonderful and actually flying up the sound and landing at the airport surrounded by 6-8,000 foot mountains was breathtaking. We then headed to the planned boat tour/lunch and continued the tour of the sound, seeing the nature from sea level.

Some excitement arose when halfway back to dock, the boat lost power to the engines and steering! That was followed by boats coming to our aid and crew running around frantically while dragging towropes through the passenger cabin. After some time, they did get the boat restarted and we made it back safely to dock.

After leaving Milford we headed out to Croydon Aircraft Company, a nearby operation that restores historic aircraft, specializing in bi-wing airplanes. We were given a impromptu tour from Ryan Southam, a good friend of Stuart's, who showed us the great finished collection and present restorations.

We eventually made it back to Te Anau, ate, and went to our last tour of the day - the Glowworm Caves. Unfortunately, there is no photography allowed inside - but, I must admit - this is an experience to be had firsthand. Off the shores of Lake Te Anau, inside an underground cave, house thousands of glowworms unique to this area, which produce a brilliant internal glow to attract food. It's an amazing experience to see.

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Wednesday April 7, 2004

     Hokitika - Te Anau

Today began with word we would reposition all the planes to lunch and takeoff after lunch to race to Te Anau. With a few hours on the ground waiting for weather further south to clear, we eventually took off and headed south on the coast with wonderful views of the Alps and Mount Cook.

After a quick lunch stop, we all headed off (in one pack again) through the valley passes following rivers and hugging mountains. The views were astounding, and reminded us the real glory of flying low in light airplanes. We eventually left the mountains behind to flatter land until we reached the snowcaps around Te Anau.

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Tuesday April 6, 2004

     Leg 1: Nelson - Hokitika
     Leg 2: cancelled (weather)

Yet another early morning arrival to the airport had us waiting over 4 hours to start the first leg, which was changed for weather. But we did takeoff, leaving the freezing cold of Nelson en route to the normal lunch stop of Hokitika. As we arrived we were greeted with a local delicacy – White bait fritters – basically, fish pancakes, which were remarkable good. Some foreshadowing came during lunch, when the Mayor of Hokitika welcomed the racers to town, and noted that if it were up to him, he would call the clouds in and keep us here for the night.

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Monday April 5, 2004

     No Flight – Rest Day, Nelson

Everyone took full advantage on our rest day in Nelson with Ed, Lyle and I taking a day-long bus tour of local scenic attractions, and Stuart and Chuck (who partook in some sea kayaking yesterday) deciding to emphasize the "rest" portion of the day and stay at the hotel and peruse downtown Nelson.

The tour included stops at Kaiteriteri beach, views of Abel Tasman National Park, a stop at Hoglund Art Glass Studios, and even a quick stop and taste test at a local vineyard. The day was full of outdoor activities and even included a picnic in the grass, something none of us had done recently.

At the end of the day, we straightened out with race officials some questionable penalty points we accrued recently – turns out they has mistakenly inputted our time into their computer. With that all straightened out, we should be back on track to be near the top in the precision class again. With luck and weather, we continue on tomorrow morning, taking us further south and one step closer to the finish at Queenstown.

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Sunday April 4, 2004

     *No Race Day (weather)*

      Blenheim – Nelson

Though the weather at Blenheim was sunny and clear, we heard word from weather plane (which flies ahead) that there was inclement weather on the race route, and the decision was made to cancel the 2 winding legs and fly directly to Nelson and call it a day.

Even before we heard word about the no race day we had decided to swap a passenger with the Cessna 310 (Team #1) to allow me to fly with them and have one of them fly on our 206. This move was just to add some variety and also allow me to shoot some planes in flight and landing that we usually don’t get to see.

Once everyone was at Nelson, another decision was made not to use the scheduled rest day to make up the missed leg, so, we get two full nights to explore Nelson and the race resumes as normal after that.

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Saturday April 3, 2004

      Leg 1: Gisborne – Masterton

      Leg 2: Masterton – Blenheim

We waved goodbye to the North Island today and are now in the South, this change reminded us that we are now halfway to being done the race. It does go by fast. Another important event today was we finally got results for precision class, and we are in 4th place, a good place to be, especially with only the South island left and our pilot in command being a local inhabitant!

The day seemed to go by relatively fast, all clear weather, and flying. We had another race dinner at the airport and just as we were about to leave, the third important event occurred – Maurice Kirk showed up! Right before all the light left for the day, the Piper Cub circled the airport, landed, and out popped Kirk, well known for flying in the London to Sydney Air Race in his one-seat, mid 1940s plane. He should prove to be an interesting racer in the next days.

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