Elisabeth Easther took her fondness for fishing to new heights - this time from a seaplane over Auckland.
I've always considered seaplanes to be the height of aviation romance. When I was a little girl, the fearless Captain Fred Ladd was legendary, the kind of pilot who'd think nothing of flying under the Auckland Harbour Bridge for a lark, spouting poetry every time he took off. He was also part of my family's heritage, having transported my mother, Shirley Maddock, around the sparkling Hauraki waters while she wrote the book Islands of the Gulf and later when she made the subsequent TV series. When I discovered these amphibious planes had returned to Auckland's skies, I knew my time had come.
While I had envisaged something brief - a waggling of the wings over Waiheke as part of a 30-minute scenic flight - my expectations were blown out of the water when we were asked if we'd like to try fishing from the floats.
Once my son, Theo, and I and our travel companions were safely buckled in, Captain Emily gave us our safety briefing as we taxied out across the water. It really is the most surreal feeling to have the ocean as one's runway. Our eight-seater de Havilland Beaver made its way out of the harbour, we soon began getting up speed and the next thing we knew we were airborne. Flying out over super yachts and dinky little pleasure crafts that looked more like bath toys than marine vessels, we set a course for Devonport. Earth from this vantage point is so magnificently volcanic; Mt Victoria, North Head and Rangitoto thrusting up out of the earth and sea - there's no better way to see Auckland.
We zoomed over Motutapu's rolling farmland and banked around Rakino and the Noises before nosing towards Waiheke where the island waited patiently, her skirts of blue demurely arranged around her shores. By approaching New Zealand's third most populated island from the west, we also flew over Pakatoa.
