Going Back Home

Much like a balloon in flight, the Bazflyers always aspire to live their lives with an ever-going forward philosophy. It is therefore somewhat ironical when we say, “we’re going back home”, but what a difference it makes if it's said “we are looking forward to being back home”.

Waking up each morning to pleasant warm conditions so typical of the winterless northern latitudes of Australia rapidly annuls any thoughts for those less fortunate souls buried in the depths of a southern winter. However, as our flights assumed more southerly headings with ever increasing latitudes, seasonal realities of the Southern Australian weather could no longer be ignored. Kalgoolie was unpleasantly cold and to inject an element of apprehension the weather forecast painted a looming nasty scenario with associated high winds, turbulence and icing conditions. 

Rather than staying put until the frontal system passed across the Great Australian Bight we decided to quickly move-on East remaining ahead of the weather. This turned out to be a very good decision. Nine hours flight time from Kalgoolie, much of it above a solid layer of cloud and an overnight stop at Port Lincoln, saw the Bazflyers comfortably settled in the northern NSW town of Dubbo. Looking ahead was a 2-3 day trans-Tasman weather window.

The flight back home across the Tasman Sea commenced from the coastal town of Port Macquarie. Conditions over the ocean were near perfect along with a handy tailwind to boot. Wheels down for a landing at Lord Howe Island occurred just 2-hours after takeoff followed by another 3-hours flying onto Norfolk Island. The timeliness of our trans-Tasman crossing was reinforced as we listened to higher altitude airliners on the HF radio reporting severe icing and turbulence. The next day's flying from Norfolk Island all the way through to Taupo was similarily uneventful in clear skys. 

Taxing up to the Baz Base hangar and seeing the excited faces of our waiting grandchildren reinforced for us the wonderful emotion of being back home, a life-treasure to look forward to…!

And as for our timing. We avoided the weather system by a narrow margin of just eight hours. One night at home and the Bazflyers awoke to the first of a succession of cold wet days.

Early morning departure from Port Macquarie, NSW

Approach to land at Lord Howe Island

Back home evening arrival at Lake Taupo

"Biggles" the mouse stowed away on ZK-BAZ prior to departure. His amazing journey...well that's another story for another day. What can be said is the grandchildren were excitedly looking forward to have "Biggles" back home