When staying at my grandparents, I remember going to ZQN daily when the building was nothing more than a two-storied house with a great cafe on the second floor that had great views of the runway and planes on approach from the Crowne Range. There was usually 2-3 daily NZ 737s & Ansett Bae146, as well as numerous Hawker Siddley (replaced by ATR72). I remember the HS748/ATR used to do several daily return trips to TEU back then too.

One day I was walking back from the airport (age~10?) past the helicopter hangers and a pilot from Southern Lakes Helicopters who'd noticed me going to ZQN daily offered me a spare seat up-front on a couple of short-trips up to Cardrona