It was a rush dash out to the Airport. A meeting I had ran longer than I expected, and I was constantly sneakily looking at my watch, willing the meeting to end. Finally we were released and it was straight downstairs and into the back of a taxi for me. I had a lot of flying to do, in a short space of time. On the way out to the airport, I checked metservice and the latest news to help me decide whether to push on with my trip. Thinking back on it, it really was stupid this trip. Even a slight delay would stuff things up, and I had commitments in Hamilton the next morning. I was late, but the SCI Machine allowed me to check in. I checked to see if there were better seats to be had, but I was fairly happy with the ones I had preselected. I decided against a trip up to the lounge and hung around the boarding gates.

Boarding was called late, not a good sign. I dumped my bag on the Fast Trolley, to give me more room inside. The FA welcomed me aboard and I bumped my way back to seat 5D. I had no one seated next to me which was lucky. We taxied out and took off to the north east. We climbed to an altitude of 18.000ft. It was a cloudy day, and I had patchy views out over the surrounding landscape. Gisborne has up to 4 flights a day to/from Auckland using Bombardier Q300 AC during the week, and a mix of Q300s and Beechcraft 1900Ds in the weekends.

We made good time over the Bay of Plenty Region, the FA doing two water runs and a Tea/Coffee run. We started our descent over the upper reaches of the ate Urewera Rain Forest. The weather over here was less cloudy than Auckland. Finnaly we hit the sea and out the ACs windows on the other side, Young Nicks Head and Poverty Bay were visible. Out my window, I could see Mahia Peninsular and Hawkes Bay. I had flown into/out off Gizzy a few times, but this was the first time I had been on this approach. We banked and descended further. Finnaly I had the city of Gisborne out my window and we landed on the runway. A few bumps as we crossed over the Railway Lines running through the middle of the runway. Gisborne is one of only a few places in the world where this happens. We taxied to the terminal and shut down. By the time I reached the entrance, my bag was already on the trolley and ready to go.