Wings Over Wairarapa

Travelling over the Rimutaka Hill is still not an easy escape from Wellington. It takes concentrated driving and people still disappear over the side not to be found for a couple of days. However as the bush continues to grow on the surrounding hillsides it becomes more and more scenic.

We travelled over to see 'Wings over Wairarapa' for the first time and were most impressed. It was a great show with triplanes and biplanes floating in the air, Yaks speeding by in formation and other faster jet types hurtling and booming overhead.
People were everywhere, setting up picnic spots with chilly bins and camp chairs, getting ready to turn their attention to the skies.
The plane that gained most attention was a Mosquito, very rare, and the only one flying in the world. The 'Wooden Wonder' was rebuilt in Auckland and is to be packed up and shipped out to its American owner next Tuesday.
It was hot and got steadily hotter. I retreated under a grandstand and watched while prone  and feeling a whole lot cooler. Wairarapa with its wide vistas, heat, and rolling countryside is vastly different to Wellington with its hills and unstable coastal weather patterns.
We travelled back through Gladstone, or what on the map is Gladstone as there was no visible evidence of it, avoiding the traffic on the main road and enjoyed a most pleasant trip as far as Featherston  on lovely rolling country roads before we joined the queue of well behaved traffic over the Rimutakas once more.