New Zealand is a small country with majestic scenery and a diverse range of geographical features making it a great country to see from the air. Visibility is often up to 70 km and paradoxical to the sensation of wide open spaces, there are airstrips at numerous towns, cities, farms, isolated cafes and beaches all along the way. Flying distances are short allowing adequate touring time at each destination.
By comparison, NZ roads are two lanes only, windy, and take much longer to reach destinations with comparatively fewer views. Flyinn™ flexibility means each day is planned to suit the best weather available in any direction, which is another limitation of road travel.
With Flyinn, each day is efficiently arranged with your interest, comfort and enjoyment as the focus. Our guides are friendly, experienced mountain pilots. They love people, aviation and Flyinn Guests!
They’re also involved in their own businesses, offering you more insight into the real New Zealand. Plus at Geordie Hill (Flyinn base), your hosts like you to feel right at home in your own country cottage, as you immerse yourself in their farm and family life. Here you are invited to warm hospitality, excellent food and great New Zealand wines.
For further information, please ask – we are happy to provide past guest contacts.
From the moment we took off from Queenstown I felt part of everything, it was going to be my holiday too! This was a surprise as I had low expectations, I was a bit anxious, having rarely flown in a small plane before. I forgot my nerves, and was awed by the scenery and within minutes was absorbed with taking as many photos as possible and writing a log which I kept going for the whole holiday – I’m so glad I did because we’ve now got an accurate recollection of what we did each day…..
On that first day, we had coffee and scones in Geordie Hill’s amazing kitchen, then we were off to get up close and personal with Mount Cook, to have lunch there and meet some of the mountain rescue team who reminded us theirs can be a treacherous job, and by the evening we were enjoying a barbeque on Ruby Island, Lake Wanaka, having had a quick spin in Matt and Jo’s boat. I still can hardly believe we packed so much into one day. But it didn’t feel rushed.
Part of Matt and Jo’s magic formula is that there’ll usually be two guest couples so I had another passenger to share my experiences with, which I really appreciated. I loved seeing Eryl (my husband) so happy – he’d secretly dreamed about this trip for years and was in his element. Listening to him and Matt or Nick or Kylie talking about the flight I began to appreciate why he loves flying so much. And as a geographer he was also great at explaining what we were seeing, and making sense of the spectacular scenery. There’s an immediacy about the job in hand that requires attention and concentration that paradoxically is relaxing because you can’t think about anything else so that was good too. I realised how much I trusted Eryl as I sat in the back even when the mountains seemed too close, or the visibility too low. A deep thought, which was actually a timely metaphor for our married life!
What I enjoyed too was that we not only flew over and among the most unimaginably beautiful places, but we also did a lot every day. Landing on the beach at Big Bay stands out as a particular highlight, but that day we also went to Milford Sound and to Manapouri. The guide pilots knew everyone wherever we went and so we felt we got to know something about everyday life, rather than being tourists.
Jo and Matt really welcomed us into their home and their lives. Reading other people’s comments it’s clear they have a happy knack of being able to make everyone’s time with them very special. There are little touches everywhere, from the welcoming flowers in the cottage, to the sense of celebration every evening over a glass of wine and amazing food. We exchanged lots of stories, and I joked that a day didn’t go by without a drama of some sort, but that’s all part of life on the farm and being dependent on the weather, and it meant that we were immersed too.
The combination of farm and flying is natural to Jo and Matt, but to us urbanites travelling to and from London most days, it was inspiring and months on continues to provide us with plenty to talk – and dream about.
In addition to being a pilot, my husband is a photographer and a botanist. I enjoy hiking, waking and reading. Our Fly-Inn adventure gave us an opportunity to enjoy all of our favorite things. If you’re thinking of taking a Fly-Inn vacation, I thought you might like to know WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Late night talk show host David Letterman typically has ten reasons for doing things. It’s obvious that for the pilot, there are a variety of reasons that Fly-Inn is the perfect vacation.
For the spouse/significant other/flying partner, there are additional reasons that you should schedule a Fly-Inn adventure. (I thought about calling us s2ofp but FP (for flying partner) was a lot easier.
The itinerary and other information provided to us by Jo and Matt was very helpful to our trip preparations, including how to plan the rest of our New Zealand trip and what to pack.
Matt and Jo could not have been more accomodating hosts, from the first, when we met at their home for a “smoko” to the last night for an amazing dinner at their home, cooked by Jo.
Our apartment was very comfortable and Jo took pains to buy a bag of groceries including snacks, wines, beers, fruit and breakfast foods, so we never has to go to the grocery store to replenish.
Our pilots, Nick and Sue were also great companions and Tom was thrilled to learn mountain flying under Nick’s guidance. While I am not a pilot, I thoroughly enjoyed riding in the very comfortable back and viewing the most spectacular scenery ever, certainly more beautiful than viewing from the ground.
I highly recommend adding a land itinerary as we did. We started with Auckland and ended with the Flyinn tour, which I think was the right way to do it, the New Zealand landscape was more and more spectacular as we travelled south.
I highly recommend this trip to couples, even if one is not a pilot. To share together in this fantastic experience, as words alone cannot truly describe the thrill and beauty of mountain flying in southern New Zealand. I’m glad I got to share this incredible experience with my husband.
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