Wanaka Warbirds and Southern Wheels

We drive south to Mandeville Airfield which dates back to the biplane barnstorming days after WW1. It’s home to the Croydon Heritage Museum and factory, internationally renowned for restoring vintage aircraft.

At Gore Jim takes us on a tour of the Hokonui Moonshine Museum telling the colourful history of illicit whisky stills and offering us a wee dram of whisky. We continuje south to Invercargill and Ascot Park Hotel, our home for two nights, and dine in this evening.

Our first stop in town is E. Hayes & Sons, the home of Burt Munro’s Indian Scout, then Oreti Beach, famous as Burt’s racetrack.

We drive out to Bluff to the much photographed sign at the bottom of the South Island. Later we browse the astonishing collection of wheels accumulated by a Southland family over several generations at Classic Motorcycles and Bill Richardson’s Transport World.

We visit Allan and Beverley Stearne’s in Otautau, where Allan has a huge collection of vintage audio gear, cameras and a model railway.

We walk over the Clifden Suspension Bridge and at Te Anau ride the Fiordland Jet down the Upper Waiau River to Lake Manapouri. We stay in lakeview rooms at Distinction Te Anau Hotel and dine in this evening.

Drive through the Southland countryside to Lake Wakatipu and over the Crown Range to Wanaka Airfield in time for lunch.

Your three day Gold Pass gives you the best seats at the show in front of the runway and the air show programme. We stay three nights at Edgewater Hotel and dine in each evening.

We breakfast at Edgewater and arrive at the Air Show for the 10am start.

Enjoy all the action from your grandstand seat and lunch at a cooking station where chefs prepare the food in front of you. The show finishes at 4pm and we sightsee around Wanaka in the late afternoon.

The final day of the Show – take the chance to mingle with the pilots and walk the flightline and enjoy the spectacle in the sky. Towards the end of the day we  sightsee in Wanaka and take a stroll along the lakeside trail in front of our hotel.

After breakfast we depart Wanaka and on the way to Cromwell call into the Warbirds and Wheels museum collection which tells the story of Warbird’s founder Sir Tim Wallis. We lunch at Highlands Motor Sport Park, visit the museum, take our coach for a spin round the track, and check out what else is on offer.

Later in the afternoon we drive through the Kawarau Gorge to Arrowtown where there’s time to stretch our legs in this leafy town before continuing to Queenstown Airport.