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FEATUREKahurangi NAMENational Park, near Abel Tasman National Park, where Damian flew on day two of his “sky safari” The hobbits walked. 44 • THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE • 45 FEATURE NAME The hobbits walked. We flew. Damian Barr in New Zealand Photographs: John Doogan 44 • THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE • 45 FEATURE NAME 46 • THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE • 47 FEATURE NAME Almost instantly I spot a glacier. It doesn’t glitter like a Fox’s mint, but it is vast. It trickles into Lake Tekapo — so blue it looks fake. “Yeah, we put Toilet Duck in it every night,” laughs Richard, the pilot 46 • THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE • 47 NEW ZEALAND He’s got his own plane. His own pilot. And a chance to be in the driving seat. During a four-day “sky safari” over South Island, Damian Barr sees the eighth wonder of the world and flies through a rainbow Have we got parachutes?” I ask the pilot “— my pilot — as I fiddle with my seat belt in the pre-dawn gloaming. It’s January, so it’s summer on New Zealand’s South Island. The sun can’t wait to get up and about. The sky Going up in the world: Damian Barr (right) gets briefed before above Christchurch airport is blushing. So am I. a flying lesson with his pilot/instructor Richard Kennard Richard’s eyebrows pop up behind his aviators, and I realise that asking a pilot about parachutes is like asking a hairdresser about feel flying — with its relative lack of obstacles out to the runway, where our plane awaits. wigs. “Don’t worry, we won’t need them,” he — might be easier than driving. Our flight I pop in earplugs and don my headphones smiles, his teeth reassuringly even and white. plan is set. as both engines whirr into life. Slowly, we taxi If he takes good care of them, his engines must On day one Richard meets me at to the runway. Right in front of us, a huge Air be sparkling. I glance at his shoes, comfortingly Canterbury Aero Club on the outskirts of New Zealand jet lumbers off. I feel like a wren shiny. Then I notice how fresh his face is, how Christchurch, the earthquake-slammed faced with an eagle. “Mike Indio Romeo,” says very twentysomething fresh, and I remind capital of the South Island. He’s wearing a Richard to air-traffic control in noticeably myself that age and experience are not the school-white, short-sleeved shirt with smooth tones. “That’s my radio voice,” he same. Richard Kennard isn’t just a fully black-and-gold CAC epaulettes. I note, with says. “You gotta have one, you can’t just qualified pilot with thousands of hours relief, that he smells soapy and isn’t chewing speak.” After some chatter, Mike Indio Romeo behind and below him; he’s also a flight gum. There’s no special terminal, just a door — that’s us — is cleared. We’re hurtling instructor. I’m in safe hands. I’m in safe hands. For the next four days we’ll be tinned Day 1: Christchurch > D’Urville Island > Blenheim together, flying wherever I fancy — weather Flying time: 4 hrs (250 nautical miles) willing. A Sky Safari is more like a road trip, Driving time: 9 hrs only there’s no car, no roads, very little traffic, Hobbit time*: 5 weeks, 1 day no discernible speed limit. You go where you want, see what you’ve dreamt of. You can Day 2: Blenheim > Golden Bay > self-fly, and most people do, but I can barely Abel Tasman > Southern Lakes > drive a car. The plane is a white Partenavia Queenstown P68. Most planes are white, but I memorise Flying time: 4 hrs (375 nautical miles) the colour in case I have to find it in the Driving time: 14 hrs aeronautical equivalent of a car park. It has Hobbit time: 9 weeks, 4 days Map to go here two — count them, two — engines, and six beige leather seats. It’s a little plane, not a Day 3: Queenstown > Milford Sound > private jet — we must clamber in and out the Lake Quill > Dunedin GRAPHIC TO hatch at the side. There is no toilet, no galley, Flying time: 2hrs (210 nautical miles) no emergency exit. No entertainment system. Driving time: 9hrs COME TOMORROW No lights will come on in an emergency. No Hobbit time: 4 weeks, 6 days slide will inflate. “See the axe on the floor,” says Richard. “That’s how we get out.” Day 4: Dunedin > Christchurch When he says axe, it sounds like ex. Flying time: 2hrs (210 nautical miles) Yesterday, Richard was taking crates of rare- Driving time: 5hrs breed chickens way down south. For the next Hobbit time: 3 weeks, 2 days four days, he’s got me. *Hobbit time calculated on Hobbit Each Sky Safari is bespoke, and although walking 10 miles per day the plane is not luxurious, it’s still a privilege. Richard and I agree my itinerary in advance — just enough Middle Earth to satisfy my inner geek, a glacier or two and a pilgrimage to the Marlborough Sounds, where water is turned to sauvignon blanc. And at some point I might want to take the controls. Somehow I 48 • THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE • 49 NEW ZEALAND furiously along the runway, but as soon as our “I feel like a coin being being shaken out of a piggy bank by a child wheels leave the ground everything feels but I don’t care. I have to see the dolphins slower, smoother, quieter. shaken out of a piggy again. They actually seem pleased to see us; Below us, Christchurch looks like a war bank by a child, but I I wish I’d brought some fish to throw for them. zone. Four years after the earthquake that I’m still swooning from the dolphin killed 185 people, most of the centre remains don’t care. I must see the display when we turn towards the mountains. levelled. They lost more than 1,500 buildings. dolphins again. I wish I Between the Kaikōura ranges is an impossible From above it’s like a chessboard at the end of pass. It looks like a dare. The closer we get, the the game. Only nobody won here. The had fish to throw them” higher we climb, and as we zip through, the cathedral is still standing, but only just. It’s ridge lurches away, rollercoaster style. Soon hard to believe this is New Zealand, not some the mountains are treeless tonsure-topped, country we comfort ourselves by calling bald as monks. Up ahead soars our first big “Third World”. It feels a bit like Berlin after peak: Mount Tapuae-o-Uenuku. It is 9,465ft the wall, with grief and opportunity palpable. and has white beauty patches of snow. We go We’re at 2,000ft already, and still climbing. round and round the mountain, just because As we clear the city, patchwork fields unfurl we can, and I start enjoying the tight turns. across gentle hills. Richard hands me a map nautical miles: 1 NM is 1,852 metres. A mile Far below the silver ribbon of the Awatere I unfold, filling our cabin and blocking his on the ground is 1,609 metres. Our speed is in river guides us out to the Marlborough Sounds view. If this was a car, we’d have crashed, but knots — 1 knot is 1.15 miles per hour. Richard — hundreds of spectacular drowned valleys in a plane there’s nothing to hit. Mountains explains this to me and I nod. It’s more about which out-fjord Norway. We’re almost there and other obstacles are fairly easily avoidable. the journey than the destination, I get that. when it becomes difficult to spot the river for You can see a long, long way. We’ve got GPS, Soon we’ve left the shire, and hills grow cloud. Richard goes lower. Rain streaks our but the map is more fun. I visualise our into mountains, the Inner and Seaward screen. and we’ve no wipers. Only it’s not rain, progress as the moving dotted line in the Kaikōura ranges are a safe distance to our left. it’s something called virga, which is water that Indiana Jones films. Below stretch the At 5,000ft I catch sight of our shadow chasing never makes it to the ground. Our blue skies Canterbury Plains. It looks like Kent, only it’s us way down below. Kaikoura Bay, famous for have gone. It’s cloudier than a 1980s pop parched brown by the long, hot summer. Our its dolphins, shimmers ahead. Cloud is video. “I’m not comfortable with those,” compass says we’re heading north. We plan to gathering, so we dip for a look but not too low says Richard, pointing at some big ones. fly anticlockwise around the entire South enough for our engines to disturb wildlife. “They’re towering nimbus, they can take us Island — which is a bit bigger than England The bay looks frothy, and as I start to think up or down thousands of feet. They’re just not — in just four days. It would be impossible by “storm”, we get close enough for me to see the safe.” Using his radio voice, he establishes car, as there simply are no roads where we’re waves are actually hundreds of dark-grey contact with Woodbourne Air Field, and turns going.

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