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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 10, 2011 16:18:39 GMT 12
Hey kiwithrottlejockey, going to take a picture tomorrow? I reckon they will be quite low That depends upon whether I get home from work early enough. I start work at 4:30am and with a bit of luck should be out the gate at the end of my shift sometime between 10:45am and 11:00am, but it depends on a whole lot of stuff largely beyond my control. Damn....I've been working too many very early shifts over the past few days and I've lost track of what I'm supposed to be doing. With tomorrow being Friday, instead of doing a single trip over to Wellington and back, I've got to do two return trips. So I won't be finishing work until about 2:55pm and will miss the fly-over. But how's this for scarey.....tomorrow I've got to drive a trainload of American travel writers (about 170 of them) from Wellington over to Wairarapa for the day, so they can check out various Wairarapa attractions (I wonder if any of them are visiting TVAL?). About half of them are being transfered onto buses at Featherston, with the rest of them carrying on to Woodside, or Carterton, or Masterton. Between them they write travel articles for virtually every major American newspaper as well as a huge number of minor newspapers, travel magazines, general magazines and online magazines. So if I stuff up big-time, the American news media will be having a field-day for months!  |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 10, 2011 17:13:48 GMT 12
What attractions, apart from Hood 'drome and the Harvard slide, does Wairarapa have? I'm not very familiar with that part of the country and am curious what sort of things international travel writers would be going to see. Genuinely curious, not taking the weewee.
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Post by ErrolC on Nov 10, 2011 17:43:11 GMT 12
What attractions, apart from Hood 'drome and the Harvard slide, does Wairarapa have? I'm not very familiar with that part of the country and am curious what sort of things international travel writers would be going to see. Genuinely curious, not taking the weewee. I think I just threw out some tourism stuff last night from my last visit there. Dozens of wineries for starters. Mainly at the southern end, but a few near Masterton. Mt Bruce wildlife reserve. |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 10, 2011 17:44:41 GMT 12
What attractions, apart from Hood 'drome and the Harvard slide, does Wairarapa have? I'm not very familiar with that part of the country and am curious what sort of things international travel writers would be going to see. Genuinely curious, not taking the weewee. You'd be amazed, Dave. As far as adventure stuff goes, there is white-water rafting, tandem skydiving, horse-treking adventures over some rather exteme country, guided hunting & fishing, jetboating, and many other activities. Then there are the luxury homestays and lodges that the average Kiwi never gets to see inside, let alone hear about most of them (such as the one down near Lake Wairarapa that charges more than $10,000 per night and is extremely secretive about who their guests are, but there is a lot of helicopter activity between Wellington and that lodge), the cafes & restaurants, wineries (and not just in Martinborough either....some of the best Wairarapa wines are from Gladstone and Opaki), flying in classic aeroplanes (yep, that is available in Wairarapa, including in a two-seat dual-control P-40). We cart a huge number of tourists into and out of Wairarapa on the trains, both day trips and overnight/weekend stays. A lot of passengers get off the trains and are met by limos at the various stations too. Where they all go, I don't know, but I do know the tourism business in Wairarapa is booming. |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 10, 2011 18:06:34 GMT 12
So I guess it is Wellington's countryside, but in terms of tuely unique things that you won' find in other regions, then really TVAL is the only thing?
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 10, 2011 18:53:50 GMT 12
So I guess it is Wellington's countryside, but in terms of tuely unique things that you won' find in other regions, then really TVAL is the only thing? Put it this way Dave, apart from the many Wellingtonians who treat Wairarapa as a big-outdoors playground and spend a lot of time over here, there's a huge number of overseas tourists who visit Wairarapa, sometimes on day-trips, sometimes for weekends, and sometimes for longer periods. And that's just the ones I know about, because they travel on the trains I drive. When cruise ships are in Wellington and I am on early shift, I get to drive entire trainloads of them over to Wairarapa on daytrips. When I'm on late shift, I get to drive entire trainloads of them back to Wellington at the end of the day. They must all be doing something in Wairarapa, else they wouldn't be spending money purchasing all sorts of day-packages. So what happens in the tourism business in Cambridge? Do you get tourists by the trainload (as in hundreds at a time)? |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 11, 2011 20:02:30 GMT 12
Bruce, firstly my comment was not meant as a slight on your district, I was interested in what other unique things were there other than the TVAL collection (and other collections at Hood).
All of the things you mentioed as being available are great attaractions for the area, but most places have them. Vineyards are dime a dozen these days, even the Cambridge district has some well established ones. I have never understood why they are an attraction, you can get shitload more variety in any supermarket.
Mount Bruce is certainly an interesting attraction by all accounts, my parents and my sister and her husband loved it. But there are other similar bird reserves around (including right here in Cambridge). We also have many good cafes & restaurants. We have a jetboat here, we have luxury homestays and lodges too.
The two things we lack are a P-40 to fly in, and a train to get here in. The wonderful governments of the past stopped passenger rail into Cambridge in the late 1960's or so, before my time, and freight continued to arrive in the town till the 1990's or so, but it became infrequent and so it was stopped and later the Government forced the live to be removed. It had been the country's oldest active branchline when closed and removed. It still goes to Hautapu for the Fonterra factory (largest in southern hemisphere).
So the tourists don't come by train but they do still come by road. We have a massive amount of people come here for sporting events at Karapiro, our local lake, from rowing to skiing to waka ama etc. We have the horse racing industry that attracts the horsey people. Sir Patrick Hogan's Cambridge Stud and the Horse Magic Show also attract thousands too apparently. Never been myself, hate horses. Horse sales are a big drawcard too to the town and always have been. We're not high on the tourist radar but we hold oour own. And let's not forget I'm talking about a medium-sized town and its country district. You're talking about a whole provence. Each has its own merit.
My main reason for asking in the first place was to see if there was anything outstanding in that area that is worth visiting next time, but to my tastes I would probably just stick to the airport, which is clearly outstanding.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 11, 2011 20:35:40 GMT 12
Well I found out today that The Vintage Aviator Ltd was on the itinerary of the American travel writers who travelled all the way to Masterton. We were told there would be 170 of them, but there were actually 230 boarded the train in Wellington this morning. About 120 got off at Featherston and onto buses, about thirty each at Woodside and Carterton, with the rest going right through to Masterton. Apparently, their first port of call in Masterton was the Cenotaph for the Armistice Day commemoration (with presumably the TVAL fly-past), then they were splitting up to visit various attractions around the area, with a mid-afternoon visit to TVAL scheduled before they were due to catch the train back to Wellington late-afternoon. I trust they enjoyed their visit to The Vintage Aviator Ltd at Hood Aeroplane and will write some good articles to be published in the various American newspapers they represent. Roll on tomorrow....I'm looking foward to it. There is supposed to be a bit of a southerly change during the afternoon, but I'm hopeful it won't amount to much that will upset the flying. Fingers crossed!  |
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Post by Peter Lewis on Nov 12, 2011 5:13:05 GMT 12
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Post by guest on Nov 12, 2011 8:12:18 GMT 12
How is the weather today?
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 12, 2011 8:14:38 GMT 12
Masterton:
NZMS:
TAF COR NZMS 111721Z 1118/1206
05008KT 20KM BKN030
TEMPO 1118/1120 BKN012
FM120000 23012KT 20KM -SHRA BKN030
TEMPO 1200/1206 6000 SHRA BKN012
2000FT WIND VRB05KT
BECMG 1120/1122 24010KT
QNH MNM 1004 MAX 1013
NZMS:
METAR 112000Z AUTO 13002KT 30KMNDV // FEW013/// 13/10 Q1010
METAR 111930Z AUTO 14001KT 30KMNDV // OVC013/// 13/10 Q1010
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2011 9:15:13 GMT 12
What the hell does that mean? Good or bad?
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 12, 2011 9:28:11 GMT 12
Forecast: Wind is northeasterly 8 knots, visibility 20km, cloud broken 3,000feet. From 1pm wind will be south westerly at 12 knots, visibility 20km, light showers of rain with cloud broken at 3,000 feet. Temporarily, not more than one hour at a time between 1pm and 7pm visibility 6km in showers of rain and the cloud will come down to 1,200feet. The 2,000 foot wind is variable at 5 knots, becoming south westerly at 10 knots. The report at 9am was wind 130 degrees True at 2 knots, 30km visibility, cloud few (1-2 eighths) at 1,300 feet. QNH is 1010 HecataPascals. Summary: Good until 1pm then showers and lower cloud |
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 12, 2011 9:30:07 GMT 12
Happy now Dave? |
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Post by DragonflyDH90 on Nov 12, 2011 9:56:59 GMT 12
Congrats Joe, you pass your CPL met exam but you only get 75% due to a spelling errors.
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Post by flyjoe180 on Nov 12, 2011 10:04:13 GMT 12
Thanks. I will watch out in future for 'a spelling errors'. |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 12, 2011 11:27:02 GMT 12
Just got home from work (via town where I had to do a couple of things).
I'm going to grab a quick bite to eat, then get changed and head off to Hood within 30-40 minutes.
It's a rather grey day, although calm and mild. I reckon we might be in for a little bit of drizzle sometime during the afternoon, maybe even a passing shower or two, but the main thing is there is no wind so I imagine the flying display will be all GO!
I'll take a gortex parka and an umbrella with me just in case.
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Post by baronbeeza on Nov 12, 2011 12:50:33 GMT 12
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Post by DragonflyDH90 on Nov 12, 2011 18:39:51 GMT 12
My critique was written using department english...... |
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 12, 2011 19:13:47 GMT 12
Well....they flew everything today except the Corsair. The cloud ceiling was too low for that.
However, it was bloody cold....the southerly came through not long before the flying started. There were a couple of passing showers during the flying displays, but it was the cold that was the worst. Still, it was great to see every aeroplane on the lineup fly apart from the one WWII fighter.
I noticed a Dominion Post reporter doing an extensive interview with Jerry Chisum, then a Dominion Post photographer took a lot of photographs of him wearing his WWI German uniform in front of the Fokker D.VIII, so I guess there will be an article published in Monday's Dom Post.
As a matter of interest, on the train I drove from Wellington to Masterton this morning, there were several Australians from Sydney who had flown over for the weekend specifically to attend the TVAL Remembrance Airshow. They spent Friday night in Wellington and are spending tonight in a hotel in Masterton, then They are catching the train back to Wellington tomorrow morning and flying back to Sydney. They told the train Guard about their weekend plans and he passed it on to me.
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