7 week itch

16 July was my last flight, until today. Boy, what a month it has been.

I spent most of August away from home; the usual once a week Wellington trips, but I also had a week running a new course up in Linton, and followed that up immediately after with a week in PNG.

PNG was an amazing time. I headed up a team of three running a leadership seminar for the Chief of the PNG Defence Force, his top 28 or so officers, and the heads of PNG's fire service and correction service.

It was an amazing experience because these very astute and wordly wise senior leaders gave us their complete engagement, and consequently we achieved some outcomes that no one had dreamed possible. A humbling, draining but so rewarding time.

Then of course there has been the earthquake, or rather, all 200+ of the magnitude 3 plus ones that have been documented/recorded. Its quite stunning to think that our house is but a few km away from the fault line.  Along with everyone else in Canterbury, waking at 4.35 am to a heaving house is unlikely to be something we ever forget. I honestly don't think life will ever quite return to where we left off. I think our "natural disaster" innocence has long gone. I also don't believe that anyone who has not been through a similar experience can really appreciate that feeling of suppressed anxiety that we keep under control, as we wait for the next big aftershock.

So its been a great weekend chilling, recreating and doing family stuff. We farewelled Teresa who's off to the US and UK for the next five weeks - although as Jordan and Corrie say we will hardly know she is gone as Teresa has long retired from cooking, cleaning etc.

I cleaned out our tunnel house with Jordie yesterday, planted the summer crop of food, and dug over the outside gardens ready for some outside planting in another few weeks.

Today was the boys' day. Corrie and I got up for an hour in one of the Warriors, and I put him through some max-rate turns, stalls in the turn, and steep gliding turns. It was fun after seven weeks away from flying to throw the aircraft around the sky. Matt's away in Fiji for a few weeks, so the Commercial syllabus is on hold until he gets back.

Finally, Corrie and I put in a solid three hour mountain bike this afternoon. Up Rapaki, then along the tracks to Sumner, and home via the flat. It was a great ride - I'm really impressed with Corrie's strength and endurance, not to mention his technical skills in the rough stuff. Its great being able to train with him, and three hours of riding is a decent ride in anyone's book.

Why is the weekend weather always crappy?

Its Friday night, and that means checking the weather for tomorrow to see if Matt and I can do a dual cross-country through to the West Coast.  It doesn't look promising.


But then, NZ weather is fickle and we may get enough of a clearance to get through one of the passes. After all, I don't actually want a clear blue sky and the ability to climb to 10,000 feet, and cruise on over the Alps. I've done that and there's no real challenge, provided the wind is not extreme.


I want weather that makes me work to get there, and forces me to make a lot of decisions. I want to approach one of the passes with a low cloud base and have to make a call. That's the criteria for the Commercial Pilot cross country endorsement, and that's the environment where you learn to make the go / no go decisions.


Anyway, we've exchanged texts, and we'll wait to 7 am to make a decision about taking to the air around 9am, or perhaps delay until the afternoon. If I go, i must remember to get some photos...

CAVOK - say what?

OK, so the view is a bit different to what you get when you're in the aero position on your tri bike. There's still a bit of that going on, but it's time to write about other stuff. I enjoyed the reflective nature of my last blog http://kiwiinkona.blogspot.com, so I've simply re-invented myself, so to speak.

I'm back into my flying with a vengeance, and an aim. It's time to knock off my commercial pilot licence, and the first step is completing the cross-country phase. More on that later.

So, what on earth is CAVOK you ask? Actually, it fits. In the flying world, this is just a weather term for "Cloud and Visibility OK", or in other words, great flying weather. It just seems to be a good fit, and besides, I wasn't imaginative to think of anything else.

But this is only a short entry, just so i could link the old site to something....so that's it for now.