NZFF

Hi again all,

I'm back from the Coromandel now, after spending a few awesome days down there holidaying in the brilliant weather. I was also fortunate enough to be in Tairua for the January "Wine and Food festival"Â￾ which bought out the NZ Warbirds Harvard display team, along with heaps of Yak's and other aerobatic planes performing stunts over Tairua Harbor on Friday and Saturday evenings, as well as showing off to holiday makers on the beaches up the east coast each day!

I spent my time going on a group kayak adventure from Hahai beach, around the Hahai marine reserve (out to Mahurangi Island) and then to the deserted and completely beautiful Cathedral Cove (only accessible by sea now as the DOC pathway was closed due to a fire in the nearby bush).



I also went to the famous Hot Water Beach were underground springs push up bloody hot water to the beach, and you can dig yourself a spa!

Later on that day, I was on the waterfront eating dinner and I heard a rumble over head, looked up, and saw a pack of 5 Havards pluming trails of smoke behind them, coming towards us real low and fast. I ran to the car to grab my camera and took a few photos (sorry they are not very good quality, I was enjoying watching the planes too much)



After we finished eating, I persuaded the rest of the family to drive over to Pauanui airport which is right in the centre of the town. When we arrived, I was ecstatic to see about 60-80 aircraft parked up along side the runway, and heaps of people strolling around taking photos. The airport is just a grass strip next to the beach (Look at NZUN in FS), with houses lined up along each side, each one having airfield access, there own aircraft parking ramp, and some of the bigger ones even had hanger "garages' combined with their houses! It was a fantastic relaxed atmosphere, with kids riding their bikes, and couples walking their dogs up and down the grass strip. There were a few tents, and all the airfield residents were sitting on their decks and cooking BBQ's watching the aircraft movements. There was absolutely no security, the airfield was just like a public park you would find in any old suburb, with a skatepark at one end, and a beach access pathway at the other end, which made it fantastic for planespotting, from every possible position you wanted to photograph from!

I took about 200 pics, and chatted with the pilots who told me this wasn't "officially' an airshow, because then they would have to start applying rules from the CAA, but really just a "big fly in weekend"Â￾. My rechargeable batteries gave up on me just as I walked down to runway threshold where I planned to snap some landing pics which really annoyed me, but I ended up sitting on the grass bank at the back of the beach sand-dunes watching the traffic land and depart in front of me. Full photos in the Real World Aviation Forum.


On other days, I went back to Paunui beach, Hahai beach, went snorkerling, spent time kayaking around Tairua harbor, did some bush walking in the "Kauaeranga Vally"Â￾ near Table Mountain, went to Thames, Whitianga (got photos from both the little airports at those towns too), Kuaotunu, and Matrangi where the Thundercat boat racing event was being held on the beach.

The Thundercats was totally awesome with the boats racing just meters off shore and getting huge air of the incoming surf waves. I got heaps of photos from there too, as well as heaps of free food and promotional stuff that was being given away by the beach babes



ZK-HTH was filming the races from the air and was continually flying around the course chasing the boats at about 30 feet (see video on youtube) which was spectacular in itself, seeing the tight maneuvers the pilot was performing with the cameraman hanging out the door!

Half way though one of the races, the TOYO TIRES boat flipped over on a huge wave and I had just snapped a photo of it when all of a sudden ZK-FVD, a Great Barrier BN Island appeared low in the sky and appeared to land just behind the beach!




I never knew there was an airfield at Matarangi, and hoped to get a nice close up photo of FVD when we left but unfortunately it took off about 20 minutes later heading towards Whitianga.

When we drove home through Coromandel town, I spotted the Export Gold Thirst Fighter fire engine which I thought was pretty random, being out here in the middle of nowhere!

Anyhow, I'm back home now with some fresh red sun burn, and have selected a few of my favourites of the 600+ shots I took to upload to share with you guys at NZFF:


Yellow Fire Engine at Coromandel Town


Table Mountain rope bridge


Hahai beach, with Mahurangi Island in the distance (I kayaked to there)


Early morning Tairua Harbor (helicopters were landing on that sand bank)


Panorama of Tairua Harbor


Tairua Beach


Looking up the other way


Whitianga Beach


The LINE7 boat getting air


Everyone chasing team Tahiti Dark Rum


661.2km, the total distance I drove all holiday

Great pic s Trolly , u will get to learn to stop photo'n/pic's of planes at an Airshow , I missed the AN124 doing a wingover at the 88 Bicentienal Aussie , what i saw was from a viewfinder on a vid camera .. least i did a good jobby off the video

Awesome "After Action Report" Andrew (did I use enough words beginnning with A in that sentence?)

I particularly like the Line 7 Thundercat - any chance of getting a full sized copy?

I drove Tauranga - Pauanui - Tairua - Whitianga - Matarangi - Tauranga on Friday (work related unfortunately), we probably passed each other somewhere. I checked out the Pauanui, Matarangi and Whitianga strips while passing by but there wasn't much happening at that time. I seriously contemplated going back up for the fly in on the weekend but had enough of driving. It's a nice part of the country, and you couldn't have wished for better weather!

Matt

hey, kool photos, looks like you had fun. It looks soo warm, matter of fact its actuly warm here today lol I must say holidaying in the north looks alot better than in the south hehe

That swing bridge looks like fun! Did you swing on it?


btw neat idea for the sig

Amazing to think we are in the same country, the difference a few hundred km's can make in the weather.

Looks like a cool Holiday Andrew, who'd you go with?

That swing bridge looks like fun! Did you swing on it?

First time over it I went a little slowly, on the way back I swung around a bit lol.

who'd you go with?

Dad, Mum and brother. Next week I'm going to Oz with a mate from school though!

I have many similar photos from when I was in the Coromandel back in November (except mine mostly feature a 1000ft cloudbase and drizzle!)

What I truly loved about Pauanui (apart from the houses next to the runway - I want one!!), was the airfield security. I've seen some complex stuff in my time: big fences, cameras, infra red and so on, but this takes the biscuit!



(oh, and over the course of six weeks, I put 5000km on the car! )

Very cool shots Andrew, looks a really beautiful place, especially under such sunny skies. Cheers for sharing, I enjoyed the read.

I never knew there was an airfield at Matarangi,

That's exactly the sort of thing you're s'posed to find out before you go on holiday!