A hard days work

Today I flew to Invercargill, a small southern city approx 200km south of Dunedin, for work. The Dialysis service which I work for is a regional service so we cover all of Dunedin City, Northern, Central & South Otago as well as Southland; as far south as Stewart Island. No we don't get to travel to Stewart Island, mores the pity. To drive to Invercargill would take about 2 hours 45 minutes but today we took just 45 minutes in a Seneca. I could not help but feel as we flew out this morning that as far as nursing jobs go this one is pretty special.

Yes, 7 hours of clinic is pretty intense but then look at the view from the office window - well for part of the day (90 minutes) any way!

 

Phil, the pilot, is said to be the best. Apparently he used to fly across Foveaux Strait all the time. I am told if anyone can put it on the deck when it is rough Phil can. The first time I flew down I noticed it was dead calm, as we landed Phil had the plane right down the centre of the runway and we could hear the stall warning go off. Today we landed into a strong  north westerly wind: no stall warning as Phil came in steep, flew it on to the runway and had to apply hard left aileron all the way until we were slow enough to taxi off.

What I liked was when we came to return, Phil turned and looked at me and said, "Ready?!" I wonder what he would have done if I had said, "Actually, no!"  The landing at Dunedin was different as well. As we flew over the Maungatuas we could see a huge plume of smoke. Apparently there was a massive bush fire in the western hills of Outram. Phil's comment to me, as we approached, was that it was out of control and there were helicopters everywhere.