Annual OZ Trip

[rosslr]

Kept going up the coast. We had to divert inland around the Shoalwater Bay Military Training area to Mackay. It was blowing hard. We got a clearance into Mackay and performed an imitation of a helicopter landing into a 25KT wind blowing straight down the runnaway!!

[rosslr]

Yesterday we left Bourketown in the Gulf of Carpentaria and flew to the interestingly named 'Hells Gate' for breakfast - its just a road house in amongst huge cattle stations. Great place and great people. Then we headed to King Ash Bay which is near Boorloola. KAB is a fishing place where hundreds of caravans and boats come to spend months fishing in the dry season. Barramundi and Mud Crabs are the attractions and they are plentiful!! Nice strip - gravel and grass which is typical of this area.

[rosslr]

DUNMARRA TO BARKLEY HOMESTEAD RAODHOUSE – 227 NM

Again we had to wait until late morning to leave due to a severe turbulence warning. Once more up to 7500ft where we found the least headwind component. Very remote area again but this time cattle stations which are measured in ‘thousands of square kilometers’!

The Barkley Homestead Roadhouse is a very popular stop for caravans and trucks going from Qld to the NT. They even have Avgas at $2:55/lt or Premium unleaded at $2:00/lt from the bowser. We carry a 20lt flexible fuel bladder and filter. I walked back and forth 3 times, each time thinking that I was saving $10:50 each trip and that was a couple of beers!

[rosslr]

WHITE CLIFFS TO HAY

We are within striking distance of home! BUT..... The weather looked good to within 150nm of home and then the forecast was pretty dismal - in fact, we couldn't have got into our Valley as it was wall to wall low cloud and rain. Good news is that tomorrow looks really good. So we decided to go sth to Hay in western NSW and wait until tomorrow to make the final flight of our trip. The weather was good as we left
white Cliffs with a 20kt tail wind. We could see the cloud and rain ahead so had to deviate around it to the west. Originally we planned to go to Griffith but we deviated to Hay and got in just before a band of rain and low cloud.

Gayle managed to get a good shot of panel of the plane today that shows everything as we use it - we were at 3500ft and had a ground speed of about 118kts. But as Jim pointed out, it doesn't seem possible to blow the photos up so you will probably miss the detail. However, for those of you interested, our panel consists of ( from L - R ) MGL mini flight and engine instruments, Garmin 695, Top to bottom - MGL radio, Trigg Mode S transponder, Airmaster CSP control, and Ipad mini. ON top of the glare shield is a Dynon Traffic in system that links to the ipad. Only other thing of interest is the AOA indicator above the engine display.

Anyway, home tomorrow when I'll provide a few stats and thoughts about his type of trip.

cheers

r