Adels Grove

A few photos of Adels Grove, note the freshwater Croc in photo 4, sunned itself every day on this log.

Day 3 Mt Isa Adels Grove

Breakfast and some early morning shopping (groceries) in the Isa and then taxi to the airport. Jenny flew the 1.5hrs flight to Adels Grove and landed despite the circling kite hawks and the large wedge tail devaouring a dead roo beside the runway (I wonder who hit the Roo)?). Stuck to the runway and and parking area as the black soil off the runway has lots of cracks and holes that a wheel can drop down, a parked cessna with no engine probably testament to a prop strike.

Adels Grove staff collected us although the camping area is only 300m from the airstrip. Camped in "The Grove" , a shady oasis next to lily covered river.

Shortly after we arrived, a group of eleven other aircraft from Cessnock arrived, mostly ultralight Jabarus, a couple of Zeniths and two cessna 182s. We first started hearing this group on the VHF radio back at Bourke and they also went on to Karumba the day before us.

Day 2 Longreach Mt Isa

Cool night but the usual blue skies and warming sun. Arrived at the airport as the VIP Hawker jet was fuelling up prior to a departure to Essendon. We departed direct to Mt Isa with David flying, about 300nm. Climbed to 8500ft and cruised at 125knots, passing just west of Winton. Crossed the dry bed of the dusty Diamantina, not far south of its source in rocky hills south of Mount Isa. No traffic at Isa so descended and made a ten mile final into run way 34. Fuelled up and parked in the stony gravel itinerant parking area. Half way through tying down and getting our gear out a large chopper arrived and surprised us by passing directly over us, we just had to sit tight with eyes closed and once it had passed the plane was full of dust, we were covered in it, loose items were blown all over the place and had to retrieve them. The pilot and his wife, Mr &Mrs Kennedy from the Gold Coast came over and profusely aplogised and shouted us a taxi ride to town with them. They had been staying with friends on Pungalina Station NT, fishing and crabbing. Booked into the Verona Four Seasons in downtown Isa. Had a lazy afternoon and walked around town including the lookout, all very familiar from two years ago. Planning an early start to Adels Grove Monday morning.

Day 1 Bathurst Bourke Longreach

Clear morning in Bathurst with frost on the ground. Made an early start and with Jenny flying the first leg to Bourke we were in the air by 8am. Tracked south of Dubbo and overhead Narromine. Not much traffic and landed on runway 05 at Bourke about 10.30am, taxiing straight to the fuel bowser to fill up. Very quiet at Bourke compared to previous visits, no other aircraft on the apron. Had some sandwiches sitting in front of the terminal garden and then back into the air with David flying a very long leg to Longreach. Conserving fuel did a cruise climb to 4500 feet with mixture leaned and settled down at 70% power and 5hr endurance. Later climbed in two steps to 8500ft as the air became bumpy. Made good time eventually settling down to 120knots and plenty of range so no need to think about diverting to Charleville for fuel. Whoops, forgot to book our accommodation before leaving Bathurst and again at Bourke. Shouldn’t be a problem, wasn’t in previous years. Three and a half hours studying remote stations and airstrips and the mostly dry beds of the Paroo and Warego Rivers and then into Longreach, refueled and parked opposite the Qantas museum. Guess what, a huge weekend in Longreach-Stockmans Hall of Fame 20th anniversary dinner with VIPs uncluding the governor attending,Big football dinner at Ilfracombe, everything booked solid and not even a space to put up our tent in the caravan park. Eventually found a $57 room at the Welcome Home Hotel in Eagle Street, very basic but better than sleeping under the wing!! Visited our favorite Chinesy for Dinner and walked the main street, past the landmark lighted water tower and the beautiful old railway station. Doesn’t look as prosperous as previous years with some businesses for sale.

Poppy's Birthday

Tim, Pip and Mackenzie came for David's birthday dinner on the second. Mackenzie was on a roll for a while but ended up asleep before the birthday cake, well birthday cup cakes actually.
Mackenzie arrived wearing Poppy's birthday present, a "camel back", if you dont ride a pushbike you may not know what this is.

Singapore Stopover

On the way home from the Surabaya conference we had a few hours in Singapore. Did the usual tourist thing and went to Raffles Hotel and enjoyed a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar while throwing the peanut shells on the floor.
Then walked down to the waterfront for a ride on the Singapore Flyer which is pretty much a copy of the "London Eye".

Came back to Sydney overnight on the new Airbus A380.

More South Coast

Susan said she is already missing the Australiam landscape so here is some more. Jenny with Narooma in the background.

Jenny with Central Tilba behind and the sea in the distance.

Moruya Airport, Jenny flying, departing for Bathurst.

Jen on downwind for rwy 35, full stop, Bathurst, sun just about to set.

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.