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Subject: Tuesday April 6, 2004
Time: 10:53:00 AM EDT
Author: nzairrace
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.
His wish was granted about 2 hours later, as almost all the racers got into the sky and headed for the scheduled destination of Christchurch only to have all but 4 planes turn back as the passageway through the mountains filled up with a mixture of heavy precipitation and non-VFR clouding. This left us with some of the teams making it to Christchurch and most of the planes grounded at Hokitika. Knowing the small town could not handle all the racers (more than 150 people needing hotels) we quickly hopped into our 206 and headed for nearby Greymouth, where we will stay tonight and head back to Hokitika in the morning.
To sum up the day, Lyle passed on some pilot wisdom: "It is better to be on the ground wishing to be in the air, than in the air wishing to be on the ground." Tomorrow at 8am, we have a race briefing to let us know what and where the next leg holds. Stay tuned
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