I recently came back from my South Island New Zealand trip and the post-holiday depression blues are quickly settling in. I never knew, from such a short flight from Sydney (3 hours) you could find yourself in such an engrossing, breathtaking place. We spent a week during the winter period exploring the natural beauty of South Island. We managed to explore the mountains and ski slopes of Triple Cone, the waterfalls of Milford Sound by cruise ship, the idyllic Wanaka Lake and the proximity mountains by helicopter.

Queenstown, New Zealand absolutely breathtaking!

The adventure begins when you begin your descend into Queenstown Airport. The snow cap mountains are picture perfect – you feel so small and insignificant going down into the valley.

Tiny Tiny Air New Zealand A320 approaching Runway 23 (NZQN).

Zoomed out, aircraft looks even smaller.

Our approach was into RW23 — a high precision approach (RNP23). I manage to take some amazing photography coming into landing. Impressive piloting:

NZQN RNP 23 Approach. Source: AIP New Zealand

In our trip we managed to spend 40 minutes in the air with Aspiring Helicopters. This was memorable as we flew extremely close to the mountains. Impressive!

Amazing view from our Airbus AS350 Helicopter.

The best part – we can land (nearly) anywhere.

Milford Sound (its a misconception — Sound are formed from rivers. Milford Sound is actually a fiord) — the 8th wonder of the World was spectacular.  There is a small airport and on a clear weather day it would be amazing flying in.  Unfortunately our visit was marred by bad rainy weather. That didn’t stop us going out on a cruise and observing the waterfalls and getting very wet!

Unfortunately our time went by too quickly. There are already future plans to return to New Zealand. If you’ve also visited this beautiful place, please share your experience in the comments section below.

Powerful. Flying. Machine.

Queenstown Airport, surrounded by natural beauty

Flight Simulator FSX/Prepar3D Scenery

Orbx South Island
Orbx Queenstown Airport
Orbx Milford Sound Airport 
RNP 5/23 Navdata for Jeehell FMGS
Godzone New Zealand