Fraser Island

Yesterday the Bazflyers landed at Hervey Bay and early this morning they rode the ferry across to Fraser Island. This World Heritage listed area is located some 200 kms north of Brisbane and represents the largest sand island in the world. Unlike most sand dunes, plant life on Fraser Island is abundant due to an underground aquifer and naturally occurring fungi present in the sand. The island is dominated with rain forests, eucalyptus woodland, mangrove forests and coastal heaths. 

Apart from the island's amazing landscape the eastern coast also holds an interesting piece of New Zealand's history. One hundred years ago World War One was raging. New Zealanders along with Australians had landed on the Gallipoli Peninsular. The mounting flow of casualties was felt in every quarter of the home countries. Desperate to assist the people of New Zealand donated generously to equip and staff a hospital ship to support wounded Anzac soldiers. This ship was the SS Maheno and in 1915 it was the fasted passenger ship operating between New Zealand and Australia.

The Maheno with its dedicated NZ doctors, nurses and crew served courageously throughout the war. When hostilities ceased in 1918 the ship was used to transport soldiers home and later returned to service as a passenger liner. It was eventually retired in 1935 but while being towed from Sydney to Japan the tow-line broke. Sadly this gallant ship ended its days in one piece beached on Fraser Island. After eighty years of relentless pounding from sea, tides and sand only a skeleton of the SS Maheno remains visible. 

One wonders how many of the folk who visit this shipwreck each year realise the important role it played during the Great War and the many lives saved by her hard working nurses and doctors.

Remains of the SS Maheno

Fresh water pond on Fraser Island

Fraser Island rain forest

Fraser Island is one of only 2 commercial beach airports in the world

Lord Howe Island

The Tasman Sea is a 2500 km wide expanse of water that separates New Zealand from the continent of Australia. Islands in this southern ocean are few and far between and Lord Howe Island located about 500 km off the Australian eastern sea-board is exceptional. The remnant of a mighty shield volcano that erupted from the sea floor some seven million years ago. Lord Howe Island is so isolated that no human set foot here until 1788. It was a further 46 years before three British whalers settled on the island each accompanied by a Maori wife.

Today the island is administered by the State of New South Wales and enjoys World Heritage status. A small population of just 380 locals live on Lord Howe Island and the maximum number of visitors at any time is limited by law to 400 people. 

Apart from a small shipping service, locals and visitors alike rely on air transport for access and delivery of fresh supplies. For 32 years Lord Howe Island's air link was provided courtesy of flying boats. This service operated off the island's lagoon with a schedule that varied daily depending on local tides and fickle weather. An airstrip was built on the island in 1974. Nowadays, regular links to the Australian 'mainland' are no longer scheduled according to the tides, however, weather conditions still occasionally intervene. The most notable weather factor is winds that produce severe turbulence off the island's rugged terrain.

Lord Howe Island is also a Customs port and over the years Bazflyers have landed here when transiting the Tasman Sea for our necessary passport stamps required when arriving or departing Australia. In a wonderful way this service is uniquely delivered on Lord Howe Island by the same cheery lady who also runs the airport's small cafe. Where else in the world can you be processed through immigration and have a steaming hot coffee in hand....all served to you by the same friendly person? Long may it last....

 

Arriving overhead Lord Howe Island

Flying boats landed on the Lord Howe Island lagoon

BAZ and friends on Lord Howe Island

Special Privilege

Flying an aircraft is a privilege. Owning and flying one's own airplane is privilege at another level and in that sense the Bazflyers are especially privileged. 

Even after 46 years of flying aircraft the physics of controlled flight still never ceases to amaze. Then, as if this is not enough, there is that mixed emotion of freedom and responsibility as the takeoff surface falls behind and the machine is freed to do what it's designer envisaged. 

Aircraft come in all shapes and sizes. Some are are designed to operate using just the minimum of takeoff and landing surface. Other designs can be thrown around in the sky to perform seemingly impossible aerobatic manoeuvres. Our special privilege is a single engine Piper Comanche affectionally referred to by its unique registration of BAZ.

The Comanche airplane was originally designed in the late '50's with aerodynamics optimised for speed and long distance travel, features which makes it a perfect aircraft for the Bazflyers. Presently, BAZ and its Bazflyer crew are once again staying on Norfolk Island while transiting the Tasman Sea to Australia. This is our ninth arrival in BAZ on Norfolk Island so it could be an understatement to say we are known to the airport staff. 

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will again take responsibility for our special privilege and fly BAZ over 970 kms of ocean for a few days stopover on Lord Howe Island. We expect this flight to take a little more than 3 hours. No spectacular mountain scenery or places to visit along the way, however, an ever changing vista of sky and cloud formations are always a feast for the eyes.

Bazflyers

The view from 9000 feet

Montmellick

Montmellick is a small rather insignificant village in the centre of Ireland. However, for anyone with an interest in embroidery it is the home of Montmellick needle craft the reason why Bazflyers paid the place a visit. Stopping over for the night in the village proved fortuitous in more ways than intended. Firstly, we stayed in a most charming bed and breakfast furnished and decorated with Nina's amazing eclectic collection of stuff. Secondly, we were recommended to visit nearby Emo Court, a grand Neo-classic building designed by the architect James Gandon in 1790 for the Earls of Portarlington. 

Nina's 'Old Bank House' B&B

During the middle of the 20th century Emo was owned by the Jesuits and for some of this time the former gardener's cottage was occupied by an ageing Father Francis Browne. Prior to his life as a Jesuit priest, Father Browne had been given a camera and with permission of his superiors he was known to take photos that were often processed in a bath tub.

Emo Court

During the First World War, Browne served as chaplain to the Irish Guards in France and Flanders. Injured five times and gassed once, he was described by his commanding officer as “the bravest man I ever met”. 

When he died in 1960, Father Francis Browne’s negatives were packed away and stored inside a battered metal trunk and moved to the Jesuit archives in Dublin. There they lay covered in dust, quietly mouldering for about 25 years, until someone decided to take a look at what lay inside.

When the trunk was opened in 1985, critics began comparing Father Browne to the greats in photography like Henri Cartier Bresson and Robert Doisneau, except Browne's work predated theirs by decades.”

Father Browne's photo's taken in WW1 have recently been published for the first time. On their own this collection is hugely significant. 

Artefacts from Father Browne's life and a captivating sample of his photos are on public display at Emo Court. It’s perhaps impossible to do justice to the breadth and skill of his work. The country he was born into had no cars, no electricity. His first pictures showed schooners sailing in the port, and by the end of his life, he was photographing Transatlantic aeroplanes at Shannon Airport.....!

Father Browne around the time of WW1

Alcock & Brown

The first non-stop transatlantic flight occurred in June 1919. British aviators Alcock and Brown flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifton in County Galway, Ireland. The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 'less than 72 consecutive hours'.

The crossing was not only a tribute to the aircraft's reliability but also to the navigation skills of the pilots. After 16 hours flying they made landfall in Galway not far from their intended landing place. The aircraft was damaged upon arrival because of an attempt to land in what appeared from the air to be a suitable green field but which turned out to be a bog.

Bazflyers took a narrow farm track over the bog to stand on the very site of the Vimy's crash landing. Unless the landscape has changed over the past 90 odd years we conclude any prospect of a successful landing would have been unlikely. Nowadays, there are are aroximately 3000 flights across the Alantic every day...! 

Cairn marking the site of Alcock and Brown's landing

Archive photo of the landing 

Cliffs of Moher

On Ireland's rugged west coast there's a place where the land abruptly gives way to the North Atlantic Ocean in a most spectacular way. Known as the 'Cliffs of Moher' this iconic monument of nature is not surprisingly a major stopping-off point for tourists. Today the Bazflyers joined many other visitors at what is Ireland's most visited natural attraction. A very strong blustery wind imbedded with the odd rain squall only added to the magical vista.  

Cliffs soar around 700 feet above wild North Atlantic waters. Sea birds large and small hone their air-borne skills along the cliff edge often coming within an arms length of assembled tourist spectators. Nature doing what it does best...understandable why this inspiring setting has been used as the location for some notable movies and advertisements....think, Ryan's Daughter, The Princess Bride and Father Ted......

Dursey Island

The rugged Beara Peninsula, located in South West Ireland, pokes out like a finger into the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. At the extreme end of the peninsula is Dursey Island which was today's Bazflyer journey. 

This formally in-habituated island is separated from the mainland by treacherous waters making access by small boat a perilous undertaking even in calm weather. After strenuous lobbying by the local parish priest, a cable car was built in 1969. Unique in Ireland, it unfortunately failed to stem depopulation. Today Dursey is the haunt of ornithologists and walkers, a place where old field patterns are largely undisturbed and the wildlife is protected.

The tenacity of folk who once lived in this rugged and remote corner of Ireland can perhaps be best  illustrated by a heroic sea rescue carried out by Dursey Island men in a row boat. In November 1881 a huge storm destroyed the lighthouse on nearby Calf Rock leaving six keepers marooned and exposed to the fearsome elements. After several failed attempts to rescue the men by British gunboats seven brave fishermen set out from Dursey to save the men. Battling high winds and raging seas they brought all the men to safety.

The rescuers were subsequently honoured for their bravery and seamanship at a ceremony in London. News of the rescue even reached New Zealand some 3-months later. Here is the report as printed in the Marlborough Express:  

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MEX18820213.2.15

The cable car to Dursey Island is behind Mrs Bazflyer who is well protected from the elements

The remote and picturesque Beara Peninsula

Small colourful town along the road to Dursey