Kiwi Flyer

Mindful of the time, no boarding calls and flights not showing on any monitors (whether in Qantas Club or in the main terminal), I left the lounge early to check in.

I was checked off the passenger list by the pilot upon giving my name. No ID necessary. No boarding pass issued. No checked luggage. Boarding will be in 10 minutes.

A few Air NZ prop flights get called and then it is our turn. We group in front of the doors to the prop gates until we're all here, then the pilot escorts us through (since there is no boarding pass to check the Air NZ gate staff can't just let us through).

For this first flight there are just 4 passengers so we get a row each. This isn't the smallest aircraft I've flown in, but it has been a while since I've been in one this small. The seats remind me of couches you might have at a cheap seaside bach/crib. There are 4 rows of couches, plus a seat beside the pilot. No steps to help you inside, but I'm surprised their is overhead air vents as well as the little perspex circle in the window. Seat pitch is about 26" - my legs have to go on an angle to fit which would make it particularly uncomfortable if 2 adults share the same couch.

We taxi out on time, and right behind the Great Barrier Airlines aircraft. We take-off in a very short distance thanks to the strong winds. Even before we've passed the hangars we are airborne and seem to crawl through the air past the domestic and international terminals before turning sharply right to get off the flight path of the jet aircraft.

We fly low over the city at around 1000 feet (that is not a typo). Visibility is about 20km and it is rather humid so a good view of the vicinity but we cannot see distant islands and ranges. Nice views of the suburbs, beaches and cliffs. Even some seagulls flying below us are visible. Over Brown's Island and the Waiheke Island ferry. Past Rangitoto, Motutapu and Rakino Islands. Then the city recedes behind us and we head into the gloom. Despite the low cloud we are flying below it, gradually climbing across the Hauraki Gulf to 2500 feet. Great Barrier and Little Barrier Islands become visible out of the murk.

We fly over dense bush - so dense that only one river is visible in a couple of places were it widens into pools of deep green. Other rivers are invisible but for the crease in the rugged land, trees on both banks hugging and their tops blotting out all below. In the calmer waters of Port Fitzroy there is a tall ship at anchor, waiting out the weather in the lee of Kaikoura Island (there was some controversy about public buying this island a year or two ago for the conservation estate in the name of Sir Peter Blake). The view reminds me of the Marlborough Sounds, bush and highly variegated shoreline, but less settled and more rugged. Here and there a roof sticks out through the bush - the only signs of habitation.

As we descended over the ridgeline we suddenly emerged in a open farming area of Okiwi, circled the basin to land from the sea. But not before seeing one of the Great Barrier Airlines aircraft land off to our right. With a decent and gusty cross-wind we crabbed on a large angle over the harbour mouth, just clearing the small sand dunes and landed on a little grass strip.