A Slovenian biologist is making a pit stop in Tauranga to allow maintenance of his plane before he embarks on the rest of his journey.

Matevz Lenarcic is flying around the world while monitoring the black carbon footprint his plane leaves.

Matevz Lenarcic with his Pipistrel light Virus-SW914.

This is the second flight for the environmentalist and photographer, who is travelling in an ultra-light Virus-SW914 and taking photos of national parks and iconic mountains.

Made by Pipistrel, the plane only weighs 290kg and is described as the fastest aircraft in the world in its category.

Maintenance work is being done by Solo Wings in Tauranga and company director/aircraft engineer Colin Alexander is happy to have the chance to work on the plane.

'This is the first aircraft of its type to have flown to the Antarctic.

'It was always arranged the plane would come here, but Matevz started having engine trouble while flying to Tahiti.

'I was called in to help fix it; so I flew to Tahiti on Sunday and Matevz and I took the engine apart and replaced the fuel filter.”

Colin says he was a little bit nervous as they weren't able to test the plane before Matevz took off on another leg of his flight.

'The plane has a lot of fuel on it and when it takes off it has to keep going.

'Normally we have other people check our work before the plane takes off but this time I didn't have that luxury.”

Colin's fears were abated when he saw Matevz was still in the air as he kept a close vigil with the help of a spider tracker – internet tool used to track people/items around the world.

Matevz arrived in Tauranga as scheduled but is now grounded due to poor weather conditions.

'He's due to fly to Australia on Sunday, conditions for flying there are good but the weather over Australia is not great.”

For more details on Matevz flight visit www.worldgrenflight.com