AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2012 - 53

Bay of Plenty, North Island

Mount Aspiring, South Island

Plus— View the slideshow.

ew Zealand’s steep-sided Southern Alps rise majestically from the deep blue Tasman Sea to form a jagged line of snow-covered peaks that stretch almost the entire length of the country’s South Island. Craggy and ice capped, even during summer, the long and narrow range of sawtooth rock faces comes into razorsharp focus with an assist from the absolute clarity of the surrounding air. Visibility on this late-summer dawn exceeds 150 miles, a common occurrence on a windy island far from any continental land mass, or the haze and congestion that can come with it. Our flight of two aircraft—a Cessna 182 Skylane and an Aviat A–1C Husky— is scouting out the fjords on the southwestern tip of the country. And although we’ve crossed over tropical beaches, smoldering volcanos, the roiling Cook Strait, and the indescribably rugged and pristine west coast

New Zealand by the numbers
Population: 4.4 million people (30 million-plus sheep) GA pilots: 6,500 GA aircraft: 2,500 GA airports: 70 GA flying clubs: 46 Avgas: $11 a gallon

The landscape has changed in less than 30 miles from verdant farmland and rolling hills to a seemingly endless series of sparse, barren, and forlorn alpine peaks.
of the remote South Island during the 500 nautical miles we’ve covered on our journey from New Zealand’s North Island, the Southern Alps stand apart for their majesty and geological drama. New Zealand pilots Matt McCaughan (pronounced McCorn) and Sam Bowering are leading in the Skylane with AOPA Senior Photographer Mike Fizer there to record the scenes. Jack Schulte, an American citizen and New Zealand resident, and I are following closely in Schulte’s Aviat A–1C Husky, the only airplane of its kind registered and flying in the country. McCaughan and his wife, Jo, founded Flyinn New Zealand (see page 55), a self-guided aerial tour business that caters to international pilot guests and their families, and McCaughan has logged thousands of flying hours over this peerless landscape. “That’s Mount Aspiring, known as the Matterhorn of the South for obvious reasons,” he says cheerfully over the aircraft radio as the ice-encrusted, windswept pinnacle comes into view. “Aspiring’s 9,951 feet high, so it’s not quite the tallest mountain in these alps. But just about everyone agrees it’s the most beautiful.” The highest mountain in the chain is Mount Cook, a massive and solitary outcropping of three peaks that rise more than 12,300 feet from the ice-blue Tasman coast. It is about 70 nm north of us. We follow the meandering path of the Matukituki River as it rises steadily from an elevation of 1,300 feet at Lake Wanaka to 5,000 feet at the Matukituki Saddle about 15 miles west. Like many other rivers in this part of the country, the Matukituki is known for trophy trout. The braided river shifts along the gravelly floor of a tightly sculpted glacial valley. The Skylane is climbing at full power and hugging the south-facing
AOPA PILOT • 53 • MAY 2012

AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2012