Welcome to Wellington!

I didn't plan on doing any flying today, so just headed out to the aero club expecting to sit and yak for a while.

Things don't always go to plan though, and I ended up being invited on an IFR cross country to Christchurch. Wow! Needless to say, I said "yes, thank you very much", and 30 minutes later I'm strapped into the back of a P28R [PA28-201R - Piper Arrow III to be precise] and we are off. I've never been on an IFR flight in a small aircraft before, so I was fairly excited. It turned out to be a really nice day so we were mostly in VMC [Visual Meteorological Conditions] so I had a good look around.

The set of photos [below] are actually of the visual arrival back into Wellington. The first is south-west of the city looking towards Wellington. The next includes the WestpacTrust Stadium [aka the Cake Tin] a cruise ship and the inner harbour, and the last is of the Wellington CBD area [including the Beehive and other Government buildings if you look closely]. Hard to imagine that much of this area was under water until the 1840 earthquake!

Many thanks to Brian for the ride today, and more pictures of the flight coming soon.