North Island from the air

The end of the VFR (visual flight rules) training is drawing to a close and hopefully by the end of the week we will all have completed, and passed, our first flight test. Yesterday was my last solo flight here at CTC and was given the aircraft for the day. This afforded me the time and resource to take an adventure to Napier and Gisborne with one of the other cadets on his qualifying cross country flight.

The last two weeks have been very busy cramming two flights and four hours of flying into each day, most days. It has been very tiring, challenging and very rewarding not just in terms of progress but some of the views and sights I have been able to see. I have been able to see the majority of the North Island from the air, and land at most of the major airports too. I have flown over and between active volcanoes, islands, vineyards, mountains, water, searched for wild donkeys, seen the sunset from the air, flown over and around cloud and enjoyed every minute of it.

As with the last post, I won't bore you telling you what I've done, so here is a selection of photos from my adventures around New Zealand's North Island.

Hauraki Gulf near Auckland

Auckland from the air

Hamilton City

Coromandel Peninsula as the sun starts to set

Taking off from Rotorua

Rotorua town and lake

Raglan it's harbour

Cloud spewing from the volcanoes

Nt Ngaruahoe (Mt Doom) poking out from the cloud

Afternoon sun over Waikato

Looking across to the Coromandel Peninsula

Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf

Waiheke Harbour

The only island in NZ to have wild donkeys

Departing Whangarei

Whangarei Bay

The east coast of Northland

Waiheke, on the way back from Whangarei

Lake Ohakuri

Taupo and it's lake

Approaching Napier

Sharing the apron with Air New Zealand

Dan and I waiting for the Dash 8 to vacate the runway

Departing Napier

Flying along the east coast to Gisborne

A blanket of cloud covering most of my route home (so I went around and above it)

About to land at Hamilton