We were up at 6:00 am to shower and breakfast and then out to the airport to load the plane. Arranged the day before for the keys, a security code and for the aircraft to be left for us at the front of the hangar. A phone call from Andrew caught us crossing Ruthven street: Anthony was out early for a few more practice circuits and the Walkers were off to Oakey to bring down their fuel load prior to packing the plane. It was all happening! The guys at the aero-club weren't sure how we were going to fit our mountain of luggage into the aircraft but we squirreled it all away with ten kgs to spare below MTOW (Maximum Take Off Weight).
The wind was blowing up a bit and promised us a good push for St George and so with the return to earth of Andrew and Anthony and the arrival of their families, we took our team photographs, hopped on board and taxied out. VH-RCN (The Walkers) departed first followed by VH-ISB (The Freers); we hung back a little because of our greater ground speed. We would come to judge this separation deftly as the trip went on but on this occasion we left it a bit long and only caught the others just short of the circuit at St George. Took off from runway 11 in clear blue skies, tracking 250 M and climbing to 6500 ft to make the most of the tail wind. The cool air helped our climb performance and we were soon cruising at our altitude and enjoying the geometric shapes and colours of the cultivated fields around Cecil Plains. The tailwind gave us a ground speed of 155-165 knots and we made the 180 nm in an hour and 15 minutes.
We caught RCN just 5 miles out and Andrew pulled a few circles to allow Anthony and I to space ourselves in the circuit for runway 11. We entered a long shallow descending turn to give us a good view of a pretty little town nestled in a bend of the Balone River. ISB joined crosswind and we followed, with RCN joining downwind just after us with military efficiency. We all landed without incident and cleared the runway as each succeeding aircraft was on late final. I think everyone was satisfied with the precision of it all.
We stopped about 40 minutes for a drink, a feed and to water the local horses. So far so good. Even the Cookie Monster seemed happy with himself. We swapped pilots in JCU and rolled out no. 3 for Thargomindah and fuel. Dustin pulled a right hand orbit after take-off on request so we could have another look at the town and then we climbed back up to 6500 ft on a track of 261 M. We soon caught sight of ISB and momentarily entertained ourselves by trying our hand at some air-to-air photography. It was quite hazy but still smooth as we followed the highway ticking off the passing properties and airstrips. The landscape changed quite dramatically now into a barren and scrubby affair on a background blanket of bright red soil.
RCN took a little longer to catch but we hauled alongside over Cunnamulla (or Cunna-mule-a as the Charlevillans call it). Lovely to see Nat smiling and waving at the window and clicking away at the camera and we all waved back. A connected string of 3 lakes (Hutchinson, Toomaroo and Bindegolly) was the next feature of note and together they marked a strong contrast with the hungry landscape surrounding them. We crossed the famous Paroo and Warrego rivers but they did not look very impressive from our height. Descent at 500 feet a minute meant that we had to start coming down 25 miles short of Thargo, and although the wind slightly favoured runway 13 we had a go at 31 so as to avoid a long back track to the taxiway. Flying time 2.1 hours.
Lunch was a roll, some biscuits and a drink while we gassed up all the aircraft. JCU took 174 litres at $2.19 a litre - a fuel bill of $381.45 for 3.6 hours of flying. Just as well we had a good tail wind. Some other adventurers arrived hot on our heels: a nice Cessna 310 and a pressurised turboprop Lancair, which was pretty sweet. They were coming back from a trip up into the Kimberly. We helped them out with refueling, swapped a few stories and had a bit of a spell. Noccundra was a short hop away and we were making good time.
We were almost ready to leave when Sam stopped Nat from stepping in a mysterious stain on the tarmac. We all gathered around to look. Sam, who was fascinated, thought it looked like wee and so we agreed to probe the substance further. Nat crouched down and examined the stain closely. 'Hmmmm ... it does look like wee Sam'. 'But no no ... it wasn't evaporating it could'nt be wee'. 'Touch it, touch it ... go on touch it.' Ok Ok ..... Hmmmm .... yes well it certainly feels like wee.' But it couldn't possibly be wee. It seemed too permanent. I looked to the sky to see if there was some big bird, an albatross maybe, soaring high and incontinent miles from where he should be. But alas the sky was empty -- perhaps for the first time on the trip. 'Taste it, taste it ... go on taste it'. WTF? 'No no no .... that IS disgusting ... I couldn't.' 'Go on, go on, we must know .... taste it, taste it.' Anyways as it turns out it tasted like shit. So it was just as well no one stepped in it.
We covered the 65nm from Thargo to Noccundra in no time at all. Noccundra hotel has a very wide and very long strip of red dirt and it was covered in all sorts of cones. The markings looked more like an Olympic swimming pool than a runway and it was confusing. I made a circuit overhead to identify the windsock and choose a runway (05) when Dustin called a huge Balbo of the biggest f$%#@*ing pelicans I have ever seen. They were seconds from impact. Absolutely on top of us and there must have been 30-40 of them - all over the right hand side of the windscreen. I rolled hard left and fortunately so did their wing leader and so we all lived to scare the shit out of ourselves another day.
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| Noccundra Hotel Toowoomba to St George 1.5 hours + St George - Thargomidah 2.1 hours + Thargomindah - Noccundra Hotel 0.8 hours = 4.4 hours flying and 493 nm covered. |
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