New Zealand

18 October 2005 - my first landing at Whangarei, having grown up north of Whangarei near Hikurangi.

Aircraft was ZK-CNY, a Piper PA-28-160 upgraded to 180hp.

From memory I landed about 30 cm high and bounced accordingly - I'll blame that I was flying from the right seat.

A sealed and grass strip conveniently close to Twizel, and great little town in the Mackenzie Basin. My first landing here was in an Robin Alpha 2160 ZK-RBN on 30 December 2003, a few days after getting my rating for this aircraft. My father was my passenger, and we enjoyed calm and clear weather on a great cross country outing from our home base of the Canterbury Aero Club at Christchurch. We carried on from Pukaki to Omarama airfield (NZOU), then down the Waitaki Valley for a stop at Timaru Airport (NZTU), and then home to Christchurch.

Every two years, this airport hosts "Warbirds over Wanaka", a major international show attracting over 100,000 spectators:

http://www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com/

If you zoom in on the satellite photo a bit, you can see that the Palmerston North-Gisborne railway line crosses the runway.

Actually, just remembered that I made a number of dual flights from Wigram in an RNZAF Airtrainer way back in 1982, but they were all dual, so don't really count.