Trek Around Australia

[Librarian]

I found this trip report online. I will try to get Richard MacFarlane to answer questions.

This is the second part of our ‘round-Australia-oddesy’ in motor-glider ZAN. The first part occurred last year in September/October with a flight starting at home base, Bindoon Abandoned, which saw us fly up the west coast, across the remote Kimberley, through the Northern Territory via Katherine George and the infamous Borroloola to Burketown in far north Queensland where we were privileged to fly the Morning Glory on several memorable occasions. This first part of our trip was flown in company with two other motor-gliders Stemme VH-GTS and Dimona VH-VRG. After Burketown Richard MacFarlane and I continued on our own down the east coast with a night on spectacular Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday group, then down to Maroochydore on the Sunshine coast before crossing to Toowoomba where we laid-up ZAN for the past five months in the capable care of my mate Paul Gordon-Brander who administered copious quantities of T.L.C. to counteract the results of 70 odd hours of mostly trouble-free touring. In the event the gearbox required a scheduled service and there were several snags that required fettling – Paul worked his magic and we enjoyed a smooth and mostly trouble free flight home – thanks Paul and all the crew at Total Aircraft Maintenance.

And so pre-dawn Sunday 15th March saw me on my way to Perth domestic airport to catch the Virgin Blue flight over to Brisbane – the plane/bus trip was uneventful and saw me in Toowoomba the same evening.

Monday morning 16th - reunited with ‘my baby’….spent most of the morning just talking and checking and cleaning and re-attaching the tailplane….and failed to notice the weather building up to storms…so no flying Monday ! Tuesday 17th - a beautiful sunny day so off we go for some local flying to see all is well….off with the cowlings on return and we have a significant oil leak from the newly serviced gearbox ! Off it came so Paul could work some more magic with silk string and “gorilla snot†(sealant to the less informed..!).

Richard arrived Tuesday evening after an equally uneventful flight over from Perth. Wednesday 18th - a rather cloudy start to the day…but it lifted somewhat later…so off we went again for some more local flying. Off with the cowlings and bugger - we still have an oil leak ! This time however Paul managed to determine that the leak was not from the flange seal but via the two lower attach bolts (these two pass through into the crankcase and oil was working along the threads…). Once understood the cure was swift and 100% effective – after flying back to Bindoon there isn’t a drop of oil to be seen anywhere inside the cowling.

And so, with no further reason to hang around, we departed Toowoomba Thursday 19th March with a pleasant and deliberately short first flight to Tyagra airfield, home of the Byron Bay Gliding Club, located on the coast just south of the Gold Coast. We, of course, completed a mandatory flight round Cape Byron, the most easterly point on the Australian continent, before landing. We received a friendly welcome from “JT†and his crew who ensured ZAN found a home in the hangar overnight and that Richard and I found accommodation in the little seaside village of Brunswick Heads having been warned off Byron Bay itself by the locals who claim it has become the back-packers Mecca of Australia.

Friday and a forecast for storms to develop south of us by early afternoon. We departed Tyagra (after a bonet-bonet-dig-dig session when we noticed on taxing out that we had no oil-pressure indication – no idea…it simply came good and never happened again….!) and flew costal as far as Yamba where we chose to leave the east coast due to storms ahead. We then flew via overhead Grafton up and over the very spectacular Great Dividing Range (Tiger country deluxe !) to Armidale for a fuel stop. Having crossed the Ranges the weather had improved inland and was looking good for gliding. Next scheduled overnight stop Lake Keepit gliding club – 13 miles out of Armidale Richard flew into a 10kt thermal….in short order ZAN was reconfigured to glider mode and we enjoyed a fantastic ride into Keepit (about 50 nms) without the noisy bit ! We received a very friendly welcome from the guys at Keepit, especially we have to single out Robyn who showed us around and ran us across to the local store to get some tucker for dinner – thanks Robyn. The Keepit club have very nice chalets on the airfield and we enjoyed a comfortable night and good company.

Saturday 21st - forecast for good weather – the Keepit guys are talking about 500km +….so we depart to stay out of their way and head to Narromine for a fuel stop. There wasn’t much going on gliding wise at Narromine but we received a very friendly welcome from Bob the local refueling man and also a resident tuggie. He not only refueled us but he also made us a cup of tea, not just any old tea mind you, but a cup of Tanganda tea (side note…Tanganda tea comes from Zimbabwe – never in my wildest dreams would I imagine finding a cup of Tanganda tea in the middle of Australia !) compliments of Keith Dixon, a regular visitor back to the “old countryâ€â€¦.thanks Keith, so sorry not to have had the opportunity to thank you in person, and to catch up on so very many years since we last met at Warren Hills…catch you next time.

Departed Narromine for next overnight destination at Tocumwal. The weather suddenly came good – very good – and 140nms out of Tocumwal we were gliding again….with a 15kt tail-wind on track and strong climbs to over 10 000’ and some nice streeting under lovely cues. We had a wonderful ride into Tocumwal and understand why this area is considered Australia’s premier gliding country.

We again received a royal welcome from Eddie and his family at Sport Aviation – they lent us a car for two days and the only charge was “put some fuel in the tank†! We had been watching the passage of a trough across the country and it was here that our paths crossed – Sunday 22nd dawned with thunder rumbling and fairly wide-spread storms. We chose to take the day off !

Monday 23rd - a fine day – the trough has moved east in the night. However from here we are still thinking of crossing to Tasmania. We look at the weather and forecasts and decide that Tassie will have to be another time – we would have had to sit out too many days waiting for favorable conditions to “make the jump†(we need about 8000’ to have gliding range). With this decision made we head off to the west of Melbourne, under the class ‘C’ airspace, and arrive in the vicinity of Ballarat with low cloud impeding our intended progress onto the south coast. We landed at Ballarat (with 5 training aircraft in the circuit…) and spent a very pleasant couple of hours at the local flying club where we had lunch and some tea (alas not Tanganda tea…) whilst waiting for the cloud to lift – which it obligingly did as the trough moved further east.

We found an opening in the local traffic and departed Ballarat for Torquay on the coast just west of Geelong. We had the most beautiful flight following the coast round Cape Otway, took in the “Twelve Apostles†(now only eight…) and landed at Warrnambool airport for fuel and an overnight. A pleasant stay in Warrnambool and a great dinner, fresh laundry (an ongoing hassle when you can only carry three of anything !) and we were ready for the next leg.

Tuesday 24th - morning dawned cold and with a high overcast – yet another trough mingled with a weak front – we opted to see how it looked from the air and cautiously set off for Mt. Gambier. It was actually good flying conditions with the overcast at about 12 000’ and occasional very light rain. We aborted Mt. Gambier and dialed in Renmark on the GPS and enjoyed an uneventful if somewhat less scenic flight. Flying into and out of Renmark was depressing – the state of the mighty Murray at this point in it’s journey to the sea is pitiful. The main channel appears fine however all the areas that would normally be flushed by flooding on a regular basis are simply dead ! The salt has killed all vegetation on the river line…very sad.

Truncated to fit ... see complete article in the Knowledgebase (Trips/Treks)