New Zealand Flying, day 3: Fiordlands, Big Bay, and Mount Aspiring

Day 3 (January 9th) began with a flight briefing and then flying from Wanaka (NZWF) south-southwest to Mossburn, a small town in the northern Southland region of New Zealand's South Island, 113 km south of Queenstown, 59 km east of Te Anau/Manapouri, and 100 km north of Invercargil. At one point while flying between thin cloud layers, Paul was able to capture two photographs of our "glory", a rainbow-like image surrounding our shadow on the clouds below caused by refraction from the cloud droplets above us. A secondary and even a faint tertiary rainbow were briefly visible.

Mossburn is the red deer farming capital of New Zealand. We made a refueling stop at Mossburn's agstrip, which is mowed as smooth as a billiard table, and walked into town for a cup of tea before continuing onward.

From Mossburn I flew west over the Fiordlands, including Doubtful Sound (Patea), then north-northeast to Milford Sound (Piopiotahi), which we had visited by car and ship a few days earlier.

Fiordland scenes:

Milford Sound Airport, NZMF, is a small but very busy airport, used mostly by tourist and flightseeing operations, in the village of Milford Sound at the head of the fjord at the junction of the Cleddau and Arthur Rivers. It is a sealed strip of 792m. The New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority publishes a GAP (Good Aviation Practices) document for flying into and out of Milford Sound Airport.

We had lunch and a walk around Milford Sound to see Bowen Falls, one of two permanent waterfalls emptying into the fjord. We had uncharacteristically sunny weather here. It had not rained for ten days, so only the two permanent waterfalls were flowing. If it is wet, as it usually is, waterfalls pour off of the cliffs surrounding the fjord.

From Milford Sound, we donned our life jackets and flew north up the west coast to Big Bay, a hard sand beach where we landed at low tide. We did a touch-and-go first to make sure it would be safe to land, although there were already three airplanes parked at the north end of the beach who had obviously arrived safely. The second Cessna of our little group came in after we did.