Kiwi Flyer
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2004
- Posts
- 5,453
WELLINGTON to TAUPO (WLG-TUO) on NZ Beech 1900D
The time until my flight passes quickly and all too soon the flight is called. Followed a minute later by another call. I guess they are waiting for me (again), so rush off to the end of the finger pier. Sure enough they had already closed the gate and were packing up when I arrived. I take my seat and there is one seat free. There is a delay while they offload some bags – the flight is too heavy. Then after some debate they decide to put some of the offloaded bags back on. Then the last passenger turns up and they take some more bags off. All the while it is very stuffy inside on a warm day with no air ventilation. When they finally close the hold and passenger doors and start up the aircon comes as a relief.
Thus we left a little late. We rush onto the runway in between two landings and then take off. We head north across Cook Strait past the sweep of the North Island coastline. The mountain ranges surrounding Nelson and the cone of Taranaki marking the western end of the strait to our left. After what seems an age compared to the more usual jet flights north we recross the coast beside Wanganui and head inland up the rugged hill country. As we go the cloud gradually builds. The rivers snake through deep gorges, their course so tortuous that it is impossible to tell upstream from downstream.
By the time we reach the volcanic plateau the cloud cover is extensive and we only get glimpses of the terrain below. We fly over Tongariro and descend, emerging from the cloud near Turangi township and the small Tongariro delta. The anglers amongst the readers may be familiar with the Tongariro River as the source of the Waikato (New Zealand’s longest river) and a prime fishing spot. A decade ago it was devastated by ashfall from the Ruapehu eruptions and made acidic. It has since cleared nicely and indeed the protective barriers for the high current lahar risk are designed specifically to keep the debris from entering the Tongariro River system and thus Lake Taupo.
We fly low over the bluffs of the eastern shoreline of New Zealand’s largest lake. From this viewpoint the awesome size of the Taupo supervolcano is hard to comprehend. I certainly hope to never live through an eruption of this monster.
The time until my flight passes quickly and all too soon the flight is called. Followed a minute later by another call. I guess they are waiting for me (again), so rush off to the end of the finger pier. Sure enough they had already closed the gate and were packing up when I arrived. I take my seat and there is one seat free. There is a delay while they offload some bags – the flight is too heavy. Then after some debate they decide to put some of the offloaded bags back on. Then the last passenger turns up and they take some more bags off. All the while it is very stuffy inside on a warm day with no air ventilation. When they finally close the hold and passenger doors and start up the aircon comes as a relief.
Thus we left a little late. We rush onto the runway in between two landings and then take off. We head north across Cook Strait past the sweep of the North Island coastline. The mountain ranges surrounding Nelson and the cone of Taranaki marking the western end of the strait to our left. After what seems an age compared to the more usual jet flights north we recross the coast beside Wanganui and head inland up the rugged hill country. As we go the cloud gradually builds. The rivers snake through deep gorges, their course so tortuous that it is impossible to tell upstream from downstream.
By the time we reach the volcanic plateau the cloud cover is extensive and we only get glimpses of the terrain below. We fly over Tongariro and descend, emerging from the cloud near Turangi township and the small Tongariro delta. The anglers amongst the readers may be familiar with the Tongariro River as the source of the Waikato (New Zealand’s longest river) and a prime fishing spot. A decade ago it was devastated by ashfall from the Ruapehu eruptions and made acidic. It has since cleared nicely and indeed the protective barriers for the high current lahar risk are designed specifically to keep the debris from entering the Tongariro River system and thus Lake Taupo.
We fly low over the bluffs of the eastern shoreline of New Zealand’s largest lake. From this viewpoint the awesome size of the Taupo supervolcano is hard to comprehend. I certainly hope to never live through an eruption of this monster.
