Sunday in Hastings

Sunday in Hastings was a relaxing day after the Saturday competitions. After a lazy start, I went for a walk around parts of central Hastings [it's a nice place] followed by a trip out to the Hawkes Bay & East Coast Aero Club for a local flights in Wellington Aero Club's Cessna 172S, ZK-CEO.

What was intended to be a quick trip around ended up being 1.5 hours of sightseeing and circuits - probably half circuits. I had almost forgotten how many you could do at an uncontrolled aerodrome!

Anyway, here are a few pictures.

First up is Mt Erin - one of the landmarks I saw when flying from Lake Poukawa towards Te Mata Peak.

Mount Erin

Next up is perhaps the best known natural feature in the area - Te Mata Peak. This just happened to be one of the points in the Bledisloe Trophy [Junior Navigation], NZ Herald Cup [Senior Navigation] and Microlight Navigation events. This was probably one of the easier points to spot. What you can't see in this photo is the hang glider operating just on the other side of the peak.

Te Mata Peak

Next are two pictures of Cape Kidnappers. This is a protected area for Gannet breeding, and as such I was 2,200' above the ocean at this point [there's a restricted area from the surface to 2,000 feet].

Cape Kidnappers

Cape Kidnappers

I actually started the day with a walk through the town. The hotel was on Railway Road.... and this is probably one of the few places to make a railway a feature for a town centre. Really well done!

Centre of Hastings