Blue skies in Christchurch - day 1

31 hours of air travel later, we got to Christchurch! Lovely clear blue skies, 20deg+. Ellis met us at the airport, which was great, and got us down town so we could pick up our van. The vans we are using are cool - modern day VW campler vans (made by Toyota and others - go figure as they say...) with great paint-jobs. I'll post some pictures later.

Well it took a bit of time to get the van sorted, so we chilled out in square at Christchurch Catherdral, got ourselves a coffee and a bite to eat, before heading to Sumner. We've got a room in a bunkhouse here for a couple of days. Its down on the coast, quite pleasant and handy for the flying sites here. Speaking of which... we went out to find the others who had already flown two other sites that day and were now up around "Taylors Mistake". We found them, although we had to trek a bit as we'd taken the wrong road. The sea breeze was calmer than expected so folk were not soaring that well - more scratching. However, we met up with Ron, Hugh, Becky and Nick. We also met Dave from ParaPro who sorted out our paperwork to fly in NZ.

Ellis had got here new wing and was keen to try it out - a nice crispy Airwave Sport4. I helped her get set up and away before flying myself. The Sport 4 looks good in the air and judging from the whoops from Ellis, she likes it. A small cove site, the flight was a 5 minute top to bottom for me as wind no longer enough to scratch. But can't be bad, getting a flight in the day we arrive!

We then headed out to a higher site, Allandale, where Ellis and Ron took a flight down as the sun set. The rest of us decided against it (plus we had to pick Hugh out of the gorse after an aborted launch). Following van trip down to pick Ellis and Ron up, it was gone 9, dark, and we were in need of food (and a bed). Fortune was kind, and we found a bar nearby which was just still doing food - and fine food it was too (fresh Grouper) at the Governer's Bay hotel.