over the hill: Plane

Walking long the waterfront in Taupo. The flat pontoon you can see on the water is a tourist attraction. It has a golf tee on it and the challenge is to drive off from the shore and get a hole in one.

There was too much cloud cover to see the mountains today. But there's a photo of them in my previous blog post on "Five Mile Bay".

There's always plenty happening in Taupo.

We were staying out at Five Mile Bay and it rained quite a lot while we were staying there. One of our neighbours woke up to find they were parked up in their own personal lake! One day between showers, we went for a walk along the lake towards Taupo.

There's a great walkway/cycleway that goes right through where we were camping. It's very popular.

A shag drying its wings on a rock near the shore.

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We've always wanted to see the Warbirds Over Wanaka, and being in the area at the right time was too good an opportunity to pass up. Add to this that we could get a deal through NZMCA (NZ Motorcaravan Association) where we could buy a three-day general admission ticket through them and live up on a hill across the road from the airport for three days. The view was spectacular.

Early on Good Friday we lined up with the other motorhomes, buses, caravans, fifth wheelers, all waiting for the gates to open.

They couldn't let us up there until after sunrise . . . here it comes . . .

As we entered, we were each given a programme—an excellent resource with lots of photos, history, and a daily programme of what to expect.

You can see the line of motorhomes in the gloom, travelling up the track. It wasn't very wide. No room to pass anyone coming the other way.

Then we were all directed as to where to park. 200 had come up the previous day. I think they were the early ticket buyers. Altogether, I understand there were 350 of us up here.

Setting up our chairs to watch the performance. We had front row seats for the first two days, but it really didn't matter too much. There was so much space. Although you couldn't hear the commentary very well, you could see everything without getting a crick in your neck from looking up all the time!

We could climb down the hill and go through the exhibits (as we did) and this was the view looking back up. This was on the Friday, which was really a "practice run" for the air show. It was a lot quieter with not so many of the general public around, so we chose this day for our "up-close" visit.

Disclaimer: It's just as well I had a programme, or I wouldn't be able to identify which plane was which! If you notice an error anywhere in the coming photo descriptions, please feel free to let me know. I'm an amateur! In spite of my ignorance about the names and details about planes and such, we had an absolutely fantastic time. I took a gazillion pictures and most of my favourites are in this blog post.

As well as the expected planes, they had a few other displays.

Steam Engines