South Coast

Friday evening we flew to Moruya (1hr18minutes), picked up a hire car and stayed the night at Narooma.

Spent Saturday exploring Narooma and points south as far as Central Tilba.

Flew home late saturday afternoon




Just south of Batemans Bay - Broulee











Ranges between Batemans Bay and Marulan

Mackenzie comes to visit

Mackenzie came to visit while Mum and Dad went to the movies to see the new Indiana Jones movie.
She spent a lot of time posting the "ball" in the shoe house ("ball" is a new word) and she has a mean throwing arm. She is however very wary of the ducks in the foyer since she got nipped by a real one in Machattie Park!

Grandparents Week at ABC Day Care

It was Grandparents week at ABC Day Care, at least ,between 3 and 4pm each day.Nan visited on Monday and spent an hour with Mackenzie playing in the sand pit ,colouring in and pushing Mackenzie around in a plastic car. Mackenzie got an early mark and went home with Jenny. She was later joined by Dad Mum and Pop and all stayed for dinner.



Surprise, surprise - Mackenzie has discovered even more ducks at home, the family of clay ducks which inhabit the front porch and we had forgotten about. As well as "more" and "duck" she now has "quack" in her vocabulary. She was a little bit wary of the realistic ducks in our foyer after being nipped by a real duck at Machattie Park.




Trip to Canberra on sunday with wardair crowd was cancelled due to bad weather. Jenny spent monday morning doing autumn pruning and cleaning up a garden bed.

Friday night David took VH BLF up for three night circuits to remain current and afterwards dumped the oil while it was hot for its 4 monthly oil change. We then went to Wardair for a Friday night BBQ and get together. Saturday morning finished doing the oil change, cut open the old filter for inspection and safety wired the new filter in place. Jenny then took us up to do some circuits but when she had to do a go round for a slow aircraft on the runway and with a traffic jam of arriving aircraft we opted to go cross country , did a landing at Cowra and home again.

Cape York Trip Planning

Starting to plan our two week flying holiday in July. Tentative plan is day one to Longreach and day two to Adels Grove with longer stops from then on at Adels Grove, Cape York etc and then a quick run home from Charters Towers. Will probably fly to Horn Island and do ferry trip to Thursday Island.

Busy week, Dad went to Auckland on Wednesday and back again Friday. Long trip on Friday because of heavy fog in Auckland sat on the plane for almost 3 hours before taking off - departed Auckland when we should have been landing in Sydney.

Alison has provide some pics of Mackenzie at Machattie park feeding real ducks.

Had a total of 18mm of rain this week and snow forecast on Sunday!

Mothers Day Weekend

Alison came home for the weekend and having heard about Mackenzie's "Duck" interest, went with her and Pip to Machattie Park to see some real ducks - had a great time feeding them except when she left her finger near the bread too long! Kenz has now found even more ducks at our place, a large plastic one in the linen cupboard as well as some ducks on a coffee mug.

All came around for dinner on Saturday night.

David spent a lot of the weekend at the airport helping install a new emergency beacon (ELT) in the plane as the old system for all ELTs/EPIRBS becomes redundant early 2009. The new 406mhz system will be picked up by satellite instantly after the 50 seconds allowed for testing. Decided to install it early as we plan a trip up to the Gulf and Cape York in July, mostly designated "remote area" where an ELT is compulsory as well as desirable.

Jenny spent most of her day off on Monday reconstructing a garden bed near the fruit trees and planting some new items. Late Monday, a week of clear blue skies and clear air was replaced by thunderstoms, hail and rain but probably not much rain in terms of mm.

Susans Graduation

This post is out of order but..... Susan Graduated from Sydney University Conservatorium of Music with 1st class honours just before she went overseas. Eddy graduated with his Masters one week earlier.

Mackenzie's Ducks

Mackenzie discovered we have a lot of ducks, the one in the green pot is mostly only visible to people only two feet high. - " duck, duck, duck, duck" with pointing finger action.

More Mackenzie comes to Visit pics

G.Grandma and G.Aunty Jane spent a few days with us on their way home from a driving holiday and were on hand to enjoy Kenzie's visit - it toook four adults to keep up with one midget.

Mackenzie comes to Visit

Tim, Pip and Mackenzie returned from Melbourne (Pip's cousins wedding) on Monday, calling in for coffee at the end of their long drive. Mackenzie came back Tuesday evening while Tim and Pip went to the movies. She sat with us for Chinese take away ( corn chips for her) and then kept us busy with drawing, wrapping and unwrapping Ted, playing the piano, favorite word is "more".

Pip brought Jenny two more Ducks to join the one in the foyer, Mackenzie has now mastered the word "Duck" and knows where every duck of every size is in the house - we didnt realise we had so many ducks.

Overnight visit to Tuncurry

Departed Bathurst 10am Saturday off rwy 17 and extended upwind to allow a joining Cessna Citation to pass. Mostly clear sky with a strong SW tailwind which took us up to a ground speed of 150knots, on the ground in Taree in one hour fifteen minutes! Passed over the Wolgan Valley (see right) still showing sumer colours.


The car was still in the airport carpark and despite over 16 inches of rain over the last month , was dry inside. At Nan's in time for lunch
Departed Taree for home at 10 am Sunday as Grandma and Aunty Jane were due to arrive in Bathurst after lunch. Slower trip home with 10-20 knots headwind and then couldnt get to our hangar because an Ambulance Helicopter was being test run on the taxiway outside the maintenance workshop. It has been in after an engine failure having one of its two engines changed ($1million per engine!!).

Went for a bike ride after lunch, 24k, and a bit stiff afterwards.
Grandam and Jane arrived mid afternoon to stay for a couple of days.

Susan & EddyDepart for Overseas Adventure

Susan and Eddy took the first step in their trip to the Uk today, Sunday 27/4/2008. They were farewelled at Sydney airport by David and Jenny and Richard,Judy and Louise Thatcher. They departed for Perth to spend a couple of days with Eddys sister and family before departing Cathay Pacific for Hong Kong and London.

More Cessnock pics

Cessnock for Lunch Saturday April 26,2008

Clear sunny day after weeks of rain on the coast (16inches of rain at Tuncurry in a month) so decided to fly across to Cessnock for a late lunch at the Tourist Centre cafe at Cessnock Airport. Tracked south of Cessnock over Mark and Cathy's house at Brunkerville and then landed on rwy 35 Cessnock. Airport very busy and an aviation museum under construction. After lunch Jen took over and flew us home tracking direct over Mt Yengo and Newnes then overhead YBTH to land on rwy 35 also.