Saturday 19 April 2014

Live from Warbirds

I'm jumping the queue to post this one while it's hot off the press.

Yesterday morning we were up at 5:30am ready to leave our site in Wanaka having hitched up and prepared for an early departure the night before. This was so we could queue with a couple of hundred other Movanners waiting to gain access to the "plateau", a high terrace above the Wanaka Airfield in preparation for the long weekend watching "Warbirds Over Wanaka". We are on a private farm and the gates were open from 7-10am only, we all had to be parked up by 10 and can not leave here for 3 days.

You can see the track up to the plateau above the third (from the right) motorhome.


While the weather has raged right around us and over most of New Zealand for the last couple of days, we have had it relatively good. Just a few passing showers the night before last and a couple of sprinkles yesterday afternoon with a cold breeze blowing in late afternoon. 




There are over 220 mobile homes of every description parked in two paddocks up to four vans deep in some places. We were lucky enough to find ourselves beside a number of fifth-wheelers including two other Ultimas. There are also another two Ultimas parked in the other paddock.


Ring side seats-


A very dusty, rocky & steep descent gets us access to the airfield. The climb back up is a killer!


Dress circle-


There's an amazing array of gourmet food stalls, Friday was practice day but today this area will be wall to wall people.


Some of the aircraft on display & airborne-









This will be my last post for a few days, the local cellular network is under extreme pressure caused by the 60,000 plus visitors to Wanaka over Easter. I'm having great trouble connecting & uploading photos.

Happy Easter everyone, I hope the weather has settled in your area and you can relax a little for the remainder of the long weekend. Keep safe.

PS- Apologies for any errors in this post, I can't see the photos!

7 comments:

  1. Great photos, Shellie. As you say, "Ring side seats". (Hopefully) fine weather. What could be better ? Enjoy.
    Regards
    Graeme Ward
    # 31 347
    Abu Dhabi, UAE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Graeme, and yes we had brilliant weather for the whole of the show which was great as by the sounds of it most of NZ had bad weather. Once I process my 1001 photos I'll post some more warbird photos.

      Delete
  2. Impressive yet again, amazing you could post at all, must be getting very slick with that....drinkies time with that many Motorhomes etc could be most enjoyable.
    Ciao
    J

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I must admit happy hour was a little large on Saturday night! :)

      Delete
  3. Where do you get tickets for access to the private farm with a large flat plateau area above the Panoramic festival of the warbirds below?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sebring, are you a member of the NZMCA (NZ Motorhome & Caravan Association)? They have a private arrangement with the farm but you do need to be a NZMCA member to park up there. Contact information and tickets can be bought from the head office.

      Delete
  4. Great blog, loads of info and wonderful photos. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to leave a message, I love reading them! All comments are personally moderated by me and I will post and answer them as soon as possible, Shellie