About us...

Colin Sutherland is still very actively involved with the Company and is also farming delicious venison on his property near Wanaka. As always he loves getting on the catering job and always enjoys meeting up with some of his contacts from the early days.


Mike Pugh, Head Supervising Chef, is based in Queenstown at the Truck Base and Commercial Kitchen Facility. Mike enjoys all aspects of food preparation and traveling to cater for weddings, movies, commercials, conferences - in short any sort of indoor or outdoor event in New Zealand and the Pacific.

Newsletter:

We have just completed our six weeks catering journey in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Where Colin and his team were feeding the crew for the movie Mr Pip.
This was an interesting and challenging job for the chefs. Who were cooking from the ship's (where they were also staying), galley.
Getting food and supplies was also a task, they couldn't just pop down to the local supermarket if they ran out of milk. A lot of foresight and planing was done before even leaving NZ. As supplies had to be sent via container ship.

Colin and his team had a great time. Even in the long, hot days, they really embrace the job. They were moved by not only by the beauty of the place but amazing locals, tradition and culture of country,(Photo's to come).

In other news Flying Trestles now has a facebook page, check it out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Trestles/128255030602156

Mike and his team are currently catering again this winter at the Snow Farm, Wanaka. It might of been a late start, but the snow and the cold is certainly here now.

Our Auckland division managed by Carwyn has just got rather busy with a run of commercial's and the Auckland leg of Mr Pip. Which is great, keeping busy in the winter keeps you warm!

Spring is here and so is the great produce that comes with it, such as navel oranges, globe artichokes, beans and of course spring lamb. Spring also marks the start of the wedding season. If you are planning a wedding email us to see some of our sample menus. We are also happy to work with you on designing your own menu too. But be quick we are starting to book up for this wedding season.
Have a great spring everyone!

The Flying Trestles with Mike Pugh at the helm is once again running the kitchen at the Snow Farm in Wanaka. Feeding the many hungry cross country skiers and dog sled teams.
We are also having a busy time for commercials too. Queenstown with it wonderful vista of mountains and snow makes for great shooting.

Carwyn Powell, Head Supervising Chef for our Auckland division. Situated in West Auckland we have done catering for the film studios that are out here. Plus location work at some of the beautiful local beaches, such as Bethals and Piha. Just recently we did a Samsung commercial in the Coromandel.
Carwyn has twenty years of chefing experience, and he loves the challenge of the curve balls that you sometimes get from location and film catering.

Recently New Zealand's iconic Life and Leisure Magazine did an article on Flying Trestles. Here are some of the photos:

Again Flying Trestles is doing all the catering at New Zealand's Premier Cross Country Skiing area - the Snow Farm, which is one of the major venues for the 2009 Winter Games NZ. The Snow Farm is also the home of the New Zealand Nordic Sports Development Inc.

The Snow Farm has over 70 Kms of trails groomed to International Standards and caters for biathlon, and classic and skating Nordic skiing, and hosts FIS points races each Austral winter, along with associated ski teams from the likes of Canada, USA and Japan etc. Flying Trestles catering is done in the accommodation lodge in the left background...


A sample of the trails close to the Snow Farm Lodge...


Meadow Hut, one of the most popular overnight destinations at the Snow Farm...

We've been at Poolburn Dam recently with a couple of our mobile kitchen trucks catering for a commercial for Coca Cola



It's located in New Zealand's famous Central Otago area and is popular with local fisherman for it's brown trout.



It's also been used as a location in the Lord of the Rings Triolgy.

As well as the usual on-going movie work all over New Zealand, for awhile now we've been doing the catering at the Snow Farm Lodge up on the Pisa range near Wanaka and Queenstown. Many people know this is the home of Cross Country [Nordic] skiing in New Zealand, while others know it as the home of the Southern Hemisphere Vehicle Testing business, or a movie making venue [e.g. 1000BC], and yet again as "just up the road" a Km or two from the Snow Park, and Dirt Park: a terrain park for free skiers in the winter and mountain bikers in the summer. Yes, many things to many people, or maybe just a cool place to have a conference or do altitude training as an athlete, or just the place to have a coffee with a view!

The main entry to the Lodge just after a snow fall...


The "high altitude" [well only a modest 1500 meters] crew in the kitchen, who've been noted as always smiling, and we don't really know if this is altitude related, but the motto is "live, love, eat"...


Did we mention the superb coffee? There's the machine on the left, just by one of the serving portals...


And if you wonder about that view, then ponder this one just a minute down the road from the Lodge...


This winter while New Zealand's north island has been ravaged by some of the worst storms for a decade or more, we've escaped the comparatively warm moist air these systems can bring to our delightfully cold snow pack, and instead over a lot of the winter a number of user friendly SW to SE fronts have arrived at the Snow Farm with attendant cold and delightfully dry Antarctic air. Here we see an ice crystal rainbow out by the Bob Lee hut, on the leading edge of such a front...


So... like we say "live, love and eat"

Cheers
Donald [for the team]