It was a much nicer day in Invercargill than when I arrived.
As I'd landed with half full tanks after the run down I figured I'd take the scenic route - instead of just blasting up the middle I'd tiki tour around the bottom corner of the South Island then up the West Coast, and up the North Island via Gisborne and Tauranga to make a nice figure 8 out of the trip.
So off I went along the bottom of the South Island at 8,500' for a better view - the trip down was at 16,000 (in an unpressurised non-turbo Baron
)Here we are at Green Islets
And in due cource I ran out of West
and turned North.
The flight over Fiordland was Wow! - I'd love to do this one for real
All was good as we cruised past Lake Te Anau
But then the mountains started to get a bit close and the radio altimeter kept whimpering and waving at me
so I headed for spaces where the ground was considerate enough not to intrude into my piece of the sky. Of course I had to get there first, lucky I didn't turn a minute or so sooner
Mitre Peak was a little bit higher than I was. Mt Cook is a lot higher !
Here we are passing Lake Mihinapua approaching the mouth of the Hokitika River. The white dot just above the river is the VASI for Hokitika airport.
Westport is somewhere down there in the murk. I guess I'm into the wet part of the Coast
I checked the fuel planner page of the Garmin here (God I love that RXP Garmin!) and saw I should have 45 mins fuel left on landing. All good. 
No problems seeing Nelson - that's what comes of moving away from the
Picton is at the end of the inlet that sticks out to the right. No sign of the ferry ...
Here's the oceanic part of my trip :-)
Wellington Harbour.
Just after Wellington I checked the fuel page again and saw I was down to 20 mins reserve fuel. Not so good ... By halfway to Gisborne I was down to less than 5 minutes. I had a choice of landing to top up, or pulling back the power and running for home.
Here we are over Hamilton. As you can guess, I ran for home
By pulling the rpm back and cutting a major corner I got back to 30 mins reserve, although that ticked down pretty steadily. I think the fuel calculation assumes a straight line from the current position to the destination. Also - DUH! - I was cruising at 8500' burning about 14 gph instead of at 16,000' burning 10 gph.Nothing quite like coming over the Bombays and seeing Auckland again ...
I think this was somewhere near Piha, turning to line up with runway 03 at NZWP.
Sliding down the beam looking good
Looking very good actually. So it should, I didn't disconnect the autopilot until just after this
Final approach. It's been about 4hrs 30mins, I hope there's a toilet next to the parking spot ! Or at the very least a tree
Kiss the runway at 162 fpm
Deliberately not quite centred so as to avoid the THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD of the centreline lights. Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
and a whole 4 minutes fuel left when I landed. No problem !
Gary
