December 2nd-8th, 2019
The next morning the weather seemed fairly decent so I
headed towards Treble Cone near Wanaka, a ski hill in the winter and a
paragliding site in the summer. As I
pulled up I could see an Ozone tent (a paragliding manufacturer) and a van
stenciled with “Wanaka Paragliding”, I knew I was in the right place. I was greeted by Richard who worked for the
company along with some other friendly people, Carly, Abbey, Nicks and
Thierry. I had done my homework on this
site and along with needing to have your NZHGPA (New Zealand Hang Gliding &
Paragliding Association) membership, you are required to have downloaded and be
logged in to an app called “Zero Harm”, some kind of health & safety
app. I had put the app on my phone but
hadn’t yet tried logging in. Richard mentioned
that I could get a ride up with them in the next van run, but only if I could
get logged in to Zero Harm. At first I
couldn’t even get a signal but they told me to walk about 30 meters away
towards a fence and I should be able to connect.
I was able to get online but then every time I tried to log
in with my Microsoft login, I received some strange error. I tried changing my password and all sorts of
stuff (remember I used to be in IT for many years) but nothing worked. What?!?
I thought there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to fly due to some
Microsoft problem! That would be
ridiculous. Thankfully Abbey helped me
out and instead of using the app I logged into the website and that worked. Alright, let’s head up to launch.
It was a relatively small launch but doable. I watched one tandem take off and a solo guy
then decided it was time to go. Just
before I launched, Phil who had offered me a ride up to the Coronet Peak launch
just 2 days before showed up for a cross country course that he had told me
about. I said hi and then took to the
sky. I flew around with Nicks and
Thierry for a while but slowly began to sink out. I worked some thermals above the gravel
switchback road that we had driven up on and almost made it back to launch but
then lost it again. I flew my way
towards the landing zone and still had the height to fly by a beautiful
waterfall. A shorter flight than I hoped
for but it’s not always about numbers, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The landing zone and the waterfalls I flew by:
The weather forecast looked dismal for the next week on the
west coast: rain, rain and more rain. So
I decided to run back to the east coast.
I drove close to 2 hours and stopped in a little hamlet called Duntroon,
population under 200. The campground was
beside a rugby pitch and there was a slightly outdated building with a kitchen,
living room and showers. It did the
trick and in fact the weather remained questionable so I stayed a second
night. I ventured over to the local
hotel for a few pints and met a few of the locals.
Hills outside Duntroon:
A sad looking wallaby in a cage in a park en route to Timaru.
Next I returned to the small city of Timaru, where I had
stayed a night almost 3 weeks prior. I
found out that it had not one, but two disc golf courses, one of which had just
opened in the last week. It was super
windy but I tried the new course anyways and it wasn’t bad, not quite as good
as Queenstown but playable. I then
headed to the Caroline Bay course, right by the water and it was poorly
signposted and more exposed so the wind played more of a factor. I chucked my disc for 3-4 holes and gave up.
One afternoon I headed to check out a lighthouse at
Tuhawaiki Point to have lunch. The
lighthouse was a 10 minute walk away along a small ridge. Immediately I started wondering whether some
ridge soaring with my paraglider could be feasible. Reaching the lighthouse I noticed a bit of
grass just in front which would be perfect for laying out my wing. I looked over the point and it was about
30-40 feet up from a pebble beach. The
wind was a bit from the northeast but it did look like it would work with the
200 foot long ridge to the left. Hmm…this
looks doable. However I didn’t have my
wing so I walked back to Betty 2.0, grabbed my paraglider and came back. By this time, only 25 minutes later, the wind
had switched a bit and was coming straight in towards the point but a bit askew
to both ridges. I started kiting my wing
and realized it had been a long time since I did ridge soaring like this. When I lived in Victoria, this is what Dallas
Road was all about and on a good day you could run 4-5 kilometres up and down
the ridge. Here, it looked like a much
shorter run but I was happy to give it a go.
I kept my wing above my head as I worked my way towards the edge. I spent about 5 minutes just testing the wind
with my feet on the ground, watching the waves and the amount of whitecaps and
deciding whether there was enough lift for sustained flight. Soon it picked up and I began to
moonwalk. Okay, let’s go for it. I took to the air and started a slow left
turn towards. I began to sink, and sink…damn,
this isn’t going to last long. In less
than 10 seconds I was on the beach. Damn…but
that was fun. I balled up my paraglider
and walked back up to the lighthouse, determined to give it another go.
This time I was able to soar the point for 4-5 passes, although
each pass was only about 50 feet in length as I tried to maximize the lift on
the nose of the point. I was slowly
losing a bit of altitude with each pass and realized I was probably going to
end up on the beach again. I decided to
try my luck heading to the right this time as the ridge was longer than to the
left, but it was also at the slight 30 degree offset to the wind. All of a sudden, I was rocketing
downwind. The beach was only 30 feet
wide and I felt that if I tried to turn left to head back into the wind to slow
down for my landing, I would be in the water.
Turn to the right and I was into the cliff. “Oh shit” I heard my self involuntarily
saying. As I approached the ground at
25-30 km/h, I kept my feet up, flared as best as I could and ended up skidding
along on my butt on the smooth flat rocks.
The airbag of my harness took the brunt of the impact and I was totally
fine. Well that was exciting. After that I decided to just practice kiting
on the beach for an hour or so, practicing things like cobra launching and touching
each wingtip to the ground and bringing it back up. It turned into a fun afternoon.
Looking down the long ridge, and you can see Betty 2.0 in the distance.
I ended up staying in Timaru, at Patiti Point overlooking
the ocean, for 3 nights. Wowsers, I
haven’t stayed anywhere on this trip for that long apart from the hostel in
Auckland. The last night, there was a
thunderstorm that seemed to rage most of the night. There were a few lightning strikes that I
could see through the curtains and my eyelids and KABOOM, the thunder followed
very shortly after. Super close.
I decided to leave that morning even though it looked bleak,
but the forecast did promise better weather.
My plan was to head towards Mt. Cook, pass by Wanaka again and then head
up the west coast of the island. The
west coast does seem to be the island’s “windshield” as all of the weather
systems hit it first, dump their rain thanks to the mountain range and then
mostly dissipate as they reach the east coast.
The drive was beautiful as usual. Just 20 clicks outside of Timaru was a small
town called Pleasant Point and there was a steam locomotive with a few old
passenger cars sitting at historic looking railroad platform. A sign mentioned that it would be in action
again on December 27-28th, I couldn’t hang around until then but it
was worth taking a few pics.
This was a little stop on the road. A collector of Route 66 type stuff from the US. I don't know where he sources his stuff but he had quite a collection.
I reached Lake Tekapo, which is renowned for its turquoise
blue waters, like some lakes in the Rockies in Canada and also Lake Kalamalka
near Lumby. It was gorgeous but
definitely looked better through my polarized sunglasses than the naked eye so
I don’t think the pictures will do it justice.
Lake Tekapo:
Starting to get stormier:
The campground was a gravel area just up from a river. Driving there you had to cross a manmade
stream from a dam that had the same lovely light blue water but by the
campground the water was a light coffee brown.
Many purple and pink lupins were attempting to make a go of it on the
riverside but it was obvious that due to some of the recent rain, the water level
had risen, drowning some of the flowers.
Some lupins were already underwater...but soon they all would be.
That night it rained a fair bit and it continued into the
morning. The cell signal that had been
there the previous day was gone but came back online around 10:30 am. I saw on a New Zealand news side that
flooding just 45 kilometres north of Timaru, where I had just spent 3 nights,
had wiped out a bridge and cut off the National Highway 1! Wow. I
had contemplated returning to Christchurch while waiting out the weather, glad
I didn’t as I would have been stuck there.
I was happy to wait out the rain and supposedly it was going
to clear up in the afternoon but then a Department of Conservation official,
whom I’d met the day before, was going from vehicle to vehicle telling everyone
it was time to go, evacuation orders!
The river definitely had risen as now all of the poor lupins were
submerged, but it was going to take a lot more water for it to become an issue,
however, what to do, them’s the orders.
I drove to Lake Pukaki, about 30 minutes away and
unfortunately some low clouds were definitely blocking the views of most of the
mountains, including Mount Cook, so I bypassed most view points. It was still pretty though. I pulled into the next Freedom Camping spot
on the side of Lake Pukaki, found a spot sheltered from the wind and enjoyed
the afternoon playing guitar, chess and writing this! The weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow,
I look forward to that.
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