March 5, 2011

Dingleburn, Minaret, Minaret Burn, Matuktuki Valley, Shotover Saddle, Flood Burn, Stair Peak Saddle, Rees Valley and Glenorchy; Jet Boat; and Return Trip

Sue is to be our guide today and we were going to the jet boat at Glenorchy after checking out a few fields on the way. We took off straight out and crossed the Eastern Hills at 3500 feet. We turned right, to the north, and flew along the east side of Lake Hawea to check out a field east of the Neck, the point of land where Lakes Wanaka and Hawea almost meet. As we descended and flew over the field, it looked like a landing to the north would be into whatever slight wind there was. I turned left around a large hill adjacent to the runway, flew south along the lake, turned base leg and then final over an island, over a small lagoon, over a fence at the end of the runway and in a rain shower. We landed fine and parked the plane to take a picture or two, and lo and behold, to harvest 7 or 8 large mushrooms. This was Dingleburn, a private grass strip, where you can spend the night in a cottage there as a guest of the owner.
We reboarded WAX and headed across the lake to the Neck and flew over Mou Waho, a small island in a lake with a lake that has an island. We then checked the conditions over Minaret, a series of two grass strips on the west side of Lake Wanaka, both oriented north-south, the southern one headed north was uphill, and then you had the northern one headed north was downhill. So we entered right traffic over the lake, landed on the southern runway, taxied north to the northern runway, and took off going downhill.
We climbed out and then turned west up the Minaret Burn leading into the really high (7,000-10,000 feet high) mountain country, finally leveling off at 6,500 feet and doing ridge flying at all times enroute. The weather conditions were intermittent sunshine and a shower here and there that we could see. Due to weather, we turned south into the Matuktuki River valley, crossed it and then over Shotover Saddle into the Shotover River Valley. During this portion of our flight, snowcapped mountains were all around us, and still ridge flying, there were times when the wing of the plane might have come within 30-40 feet of the mountainside, and we also passed through a light snow shower (temp was 32 degrees up there). We proceeded southerly and then turned west at Flood Burn and while setting up to cross Stair Peak Saddle, we approached it with our right wing very close to the cliff face of the mountain beside us following the contour of the mountain so that we could approach the saddle at an angle. In that way, if there was a downdraft, we could turn away, circle and climb and try again. But we made it and with a sigh of relief we descended into Rees Valley and then up Lake Wakatipu for a short distance to the grass strip at Glenorchy. The Dart River Jet Boat people sent over a bus for us and brought us back to town. It was the most thrilling flying that I have ever done and I never thought that I would be flying in such conditions and in such a spectacular location. What you can do when it isn’t blowing 40 knots at 3000 feet....
At the Cafe, we enjoyed an enjoyable lunch (we all had BLATs) and then proceeded to the Jet Boat office to get our gear (long black raincoat and life jacket), boarded a bus to the small harbor and boarded our jet boat. When this boat developed overheating problems after 5 minutes of travel up the Dart River, we turned around and got another boat. There were 12 of us in the boat, plus Shayle, the male driver. Since the boat was traveling about 40 mph and it was a coolish, though sunny, day, the ride was cold. It was nice that the handrails to hold onto in front of each seat were warm (like the piping they hang their towels on in the bathroom to keep them warm). We stopped in several locations to take pictures and did a 360 degree turn before each stop. We were worried about Sugar’s inner ear sensitivity, but Sue had reassured her that if she was able to take the bumps on the way over, she would be able to handle these turns - and she had no problem whatsoever. The river is very shallow, although running hard due to the recent rains, but the jet boat is designed to operate in 3” of water. It was an exciting ride but nothing like we had just been on.
We traveled 40 km up the Dart, then turned back 10 km where we disembarked and the ones who had taken the bus up took our places. Our driver was very good telling us about the rain forest we were walking through - it was everything a rain forest is not, in other words, the humidity at ground level is 10-15%, the surface is relatively hard and dry. This is because of the beech trees which suck up all the moisture (20 feet of rain per year). We rode back in the bus, stopping on one occasion to view the sites where movies have been made, and also many foreign advertisements, one for German chocolate claiming the scene as the Swiss Alps, another scene being the mountains on the Coors beer can which supposedly are in Colorado, another scene being portrayed as K2 in the movie about a climbing accident on K2, and others. As the driver said, we didn’t know we were going all around the world on the ride out.
The flight home was uneventful, except for the rain shower we flew through, seeing Shania Twain’s huge house, and landing at a grass strip at Geordie Hill. And we just finished another spectacular dinner cooked by Jo with everything homegrown, including the lamb chops. She’s amazing.
Off with Sue to Stewart Island tomorrow for two days so you probably won’t hear from us until Monday. Have a good weekend.
Love, Nat, Dad, Matt, DB