Day 1: 100 years ago today…
Up, Up and Away, 100 years ago today, Goble and MacIntyre left from PtCook in the RAAF Fairey Mk iii seaplane on the first circumnavigation of Australia, a trip I am retracing in my seaplane Southern Sun, to the same places and 44 day timeline that they did. Subject to weather of course, and day 1 their was plenty of weather!
What a splendid morning, early breakfast in the shearing shed at Rothwell, then a short flight to Pt Cook for a small gathering of friends and family before setting off to retrace and commemorate the 100 the anniversary since the first flight around Australia. The team at #raaf were so helpful in making it happen and presented me with a RAAF Ensign to take on the circumnavigation.
Once away it was follow the beach at 500’, simply the most splendid way to travel with our spectacular coastline. I was live broadcasting on YouTube @SouthernSunTV and had a few people send me photos of it streaming on their big TV’s - huzzah! Alas, that East Coast weather has moved down to Gippsland so just after a Splash’nGo on Corner Inlet, flew into Yarram Airfield to sit out the weather. So just like 100 years ago, east coast flying in Autumn sees low cloud and rain making for flexible planning. After a couple of hours viewing of the BOM radar, Windy and, um, just looking out past the runway at the actual weather, it looked to be clearing and I thought I might get through to Mallacoota, as I had become partial to the idea of some fish’n’chips by the sea…
Got underway and it looked ok… for a little while, passed along the beach past Seaspray ok, but the long view of the 90 mile beach was not good, very low vis and more rain, so at Loch Sport turned inland for Bairnsdale - I know Bairnsdale well as we have a cinema there, so landed there and popped into a large hangar - thank goodness, the rain just got heavier and heavier. I spent some time attending to a few of the things I didn’t quite get done before leaving, and headed into the cinema where I could dry out and stay the night in our salubrious accommodation - a single bed in the projection room!
Let’s see what the morning brings…
Cheerio.
MAP: Day 1