Honey Bebe Delivery Flight South (4)

In my previous post I was still at Rangiora on Thursday 2 July and I still had to make it to Rangitata Island.  Dave Paull and I got back to the airfield mid afternoon but I still had to top up Honey Bebe with Avgas.  The Avgas pump was about 300 metres away from where I was parked outside the Canterbury Recreational Aircraft Club clubrooms and I only had a 5 litre container that I had brought with me.  It would be too much of a hassle to start up or push Honey Bebe the 300 metres so we had to make 3 trips to the pump by car of 5 litres each time.  I only mention this because it took up a bit of time and the afternoon was getting on.  I eventually was ready and hand started her and I took off at 3.15 pm.

Take off from Rangiora.

For this last leg I planned to skirt around the Christchurch Airport Control Zone as required and head South until I got to the Rakaia River and then follow it down to the State Highway 1 bridge, after which I would follow the highway down to the Rangitata River and Rangitata Island.

I had not planned this last leg as well as I should have and after a while I found myself a bit lost.  The Canterbury Plains are obviously very flat and there are roads going in many directions (including a State Highway with edge markings).  So my IFR assumptions did not work so well. 

I flew around for a while without making much progress, and I was also mindful that the sun was going down quite fast in the late afternoon.  So I decided that I would aim for Ashburton aerodrome and I retraced my route.  I climbed up to 2,000 feet and saw in the distance what seemed to be big white buildings so I headed there and found State Highway 1 (edge markings and lots of traffic with big trucks and trailers).  The big white buildings turned out to be the big box commercial area of Rolleston.  

By this time the shadows were really lengthening (the highway is between the trees in the photo) but all I had to do was follow the highway to Ashburton where I arrived overhead and landed at 4.45pm.  I rang Russell Brodie and he was relieved to hear from me, and offered to drive up to Ashburton to pick me up and drive me back to his place for the night.  Thanks Russell.

This is what it looked like about 30 minutes after I landed - it was cold!  Later Russell helped to picket her down for a cold night outside.

It could have been quite serious if I had had to stay outside in the freezing cold to wait for Russell, but thankfully the Mid Canterbury Aero Club clubrooms were open and several people were attending to the day's paperwork and invited me in (I was wearing my Rodney Aero Club cap but it wasn't well recognised I found).  It was warm as toast inside and they had a jug so I made myself a coffee which was most welcome. 

After a night with Russell and Linda in their historic homestead at Rangitata Island and surprisingly a nice meal out at a restaurant less than 10 minutes down the road, we headed back to Ashburton mid morning on Friday with Russell's son Ross and readied Honey Bebe for Russell to fly back to her new home.

Russell lifting off from Ashburton. 

Au revoir old and faithful friend!  All up I had flown her South for 9 hours 45 minutes and she didn't miss a beat.  The weather had been fabulous and what a great adventure I had experienced!

I travelled back to Christchurch with Dave Paull who had driven down to Ashburton to meet me and I spent a nice night and had another lovely meal with Dave and Joi, and their guest bed was so comfortable!  Thanks Dave and Joi.

Then on the Saturday I flew back to Auckland by Jetstar leaving under Nor-Wester skies.  1 hour 20 minutes at 37,000 feet compared to my 9 hours 45 minutes at mostly under 1,500 feet!  It was good to get home.