A Good Day

Q: If a friend who is a helicopter pilot invites you to come with him when they fly 200km up the coast on a Friday morning do you:

• A). Say you can’t because you have to work
• B). Burn Airwolf and Ride of the Valkyries to CD, take the day off (and work it back on the weekend), fly up and hitch back?

Bit of a no-brainer really.

So.. Dom organised a lift out to the airport with a friend, and I messed about looking at Really Big Socket Wrenches and at the insides of helicopters while Dom got things ready.

Then, cranking on the Airwolf CD, it was time to take off.

It took about 50 minutes to do the usually 3 hour drive up the coast.. and I’ll just put some scenery pictures up. Seamus came along for the ride.

As we were coming into Kaikoura it was time for ride of the Valkyries…

Of course, then I was 3 hours from ChCh with no helicopter to take me back again.. so, I hitched. It took about 30 mins before I was picked up by two.. young gentlemen. One back from Afghanistan and thinking about becoming a private security guard (read mercenary) for about 20K cash a month. Still, they were good drivers, it was a new comfortable Audi, the dope they smoked (for lunch) didn’t impair their judgement (yes, I would have got out if I’d felt uncomfortable) and all in all it was actually quite fun.

So, a 500km round trip for $0.00. And in pretty good time too.

Thanks to Dom – brilliant.