Each year, between the 1st September and 30th October, it’s Whitebaiting season on the West Coast of the South Island. The area sees a huge influx of fisherman, heading out to the remote the freshwater rivers that trickle down from the Southern Alps to partake in the tradition of netting young juvenile spawns white or translucent fish that can be found hatching the waters and making their way upstream.

The high consumer demand for the catch, along with the perishable nature of whitebait sees high demand for charted aircraft flying out to remote bush strips in the Fiordland region, to collect the catches and fly them back to the likes of Queenstown, where both restaurants will be cooking the delicacy, and large quantities will be transferred to larger aircraft to be exported further afield.

Today’s charter run will see you depart Glenorchy at the head of Lake Wakatipu, track to the mouth of the Caples River, then follow the valley system in a westerly direction into the interior of the Hollyford Valley. Once the mountains open up to lush alpine rainforest, you’ve got pickups to make at the Hollyford Track airstrip (NZ34), the Olivine Hut airstrip (NZMF2), Pyke River airstip (NZMF5), the disused airstrip (NZMF6), Hope River Airstrip (NZM32), Cascade Lagoon Airstrip (NZ31) before arriving at the larger Cascade Station (NZ35) to end the mission.

Note: you’ll need the payware Milford Sound Region from NZ Simulations along with the freeware Milford Sound Region Expansion for these airstrips to populate. Live weather for the region is very unreliable, so suggest setting your drizzly conditions up, or using one of the NZ Weather Presets linked on flightsim.to.