And your co-pilot today will be...

So - I finally got to fly a plane. And Alec (bless his cotton socks) finally managed to organise a surprise for me without me rumbling him.

We have seen quite a few 'trial flight' offers around NZ, and have been keen to have a go, but we have never had the chance as we have either been leaving town the next day or ill, or it has been the national paragliding championships...

So, there I was thinking we were just heading on from Geraldine when Alec suddenly pulls the car off into a side road, and 5 minutes later we're at an airstrip. Well, maybe not an airstrip, but a big flat field on someones farm.'10 minutes later John and Russell are pulling the plane out of one of the sheds (which house 30 odd planes including tigermoth restoration projects) and I am getting ready to fly a plane!

Now, when I say a plane I don't mean a 747 or anything. Just a 2 seater. But hey, it's still plane. The 30 minute flight was cool and I got the hang of the controls pretty early on. We had great views over the plains and up to the mountain ranges and, after 40 years flying commercially, John was a good teacher, even if he did have some 'interesting' views.

Most of the small planes are made from kits and I asked how easy it was to build a plane. He replied that most men have a natural instinct for building things, just like women have a natural instinct for sewing and cooking. He's obviously never seen my sewing. I let that one pass though as we were taking off at the time and I didn't really want to cause a crash on my first flight.

To be honest the most complicated part of the flight was coming back in to land. But this was mainly because John kept on pointing downwards at the landing strip - "that big, flat, green field" - but I couldn't make out which of the big, flat, green fields he was talking about. Luckily it was pretty clear on the final approach.

What with the paragliding and the flying I am getting to quite like being airborne.