About us:

We are a club of about 50 members. We fly from Lake Station which is about 9 kilometers west of St Arnaud (one hour's drive south of Nelson, South Island New Zealand).

Lake Station is a large sheep and cattle farm and is owned by the McConochie families who have been there for a number of generations. They allow our club to use their 1500 meter long airstrip which is 1700 feet above sea level.

Parked on the airstrip are 10 or so privately owned sailplanes in their trailers as well as a hanger for our 2 two-seat club sailplanes and 2 single-seat club sailplanes and a winch to launch with.

The winch launch gets us some 1500 feet above the valley floor and level with the two low ridges on either side. These nursery ridges give us ridge or thermal lift and from them we normally progress onto the Southern Alps. The local mountain peaks of the Southern Alps range from 5000 to over 7000 feet above sea level and are often snow-capped.

Much of this flying is over the Nelson Lakes National Park.

Lake Rotoiti and Lake Rotorua are the main side-by-side twin lakes with numerous other smaller lakes and tarns here and there. West, and accessible, is the bush-clad Kahurangi National park. The closest mountain out west is Mount Owen whose limestone scenery was used in the Lord of the Rings Movie. To the East of us is the wide dry grasslands of Molesworth country. Out there thermal heating is more reliable and takes us to greater heights. We have few airspace limitations from our site. Land-out options are, on the other-hand, limited, but they are defined and our cross country flying is done within gliding range of them.

We have one of the best soaring sites in the world yet we are only a small club that operates, typically, one day of each weekend. With more members we could fly more days of the year. We have a training program for new club members that is likely to get you flying solo for around $1200+gst. Once solo there are the two club owned single seaters for hire. There are few clubs anywhere in the country with a lower cost structure than ours.