Port Lincoln

While flying from place to place the Bazflyers are always on the look-out for a good story and a couple of days stop-over in Port Lincoln did not disappoint. This place has some seriously wealthy locals and some enormously proportioned homes all of which can be attributed to fishing. In fact, the southern bluefin tuna has showered the hard working migrant fishing families of Port Lincoln with unimaginable riches. 

Once just simple fishermen, they have made fortunes out of the tuna industry and some of them have built massive houses. Homes named 'Dallas' and 'Dynasty', after the television series. Some of the fishermen have even successfully ventured into race horses such as Tony Santic, owner of triple Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva. Interestingly this horse with race earnings well beyond $15 million, was named after five of it’s owner’s employees - Maureen, Kylie, Belinda, Diane, and Vanessa - by taking the first two letters from each of their names 

A statue of Makybe Diva adorns the Port Lincoln foreshore.

Fancy a shower after swimming

 

Famous Coffin Bay oysters 

40% of the South Australian grain crop is grown locally and exported fromPort Lincoln 

Nearby Coffin Bay National Park

Flying the big Bight

The remote isolation of Forrest’s resident couple fully hit home while flying south after takeoff. The nearest civilisation to Forrest is Eucla, a tiny settlement perched on the edge of the Great Australian Bight near the boarder separating the states of West and South Australia. Bazflyers were told a drive down the track to Eucla, in good conditions, takes five hours in a 4x4 vehicle not including any enforced stops along the way due to punctures from sharp rocks. Now that’s got to be extreme isolation...!

Forrest to Port Lincoln. Magenta line traces the Bazflyer’s actual flight path

An insider’s perspective 

The Great Australian Bight, that huge bite shaped landform abruptly defining the southern extremity of the Australian Continent, came into existence when Gondwana broke apart and separated Antarctica from Australia over 50 million years ago. Reminiscent of a giant Tiramisu dessert, the magnificent Bunda Cliffs made up of fossiliferous limestone, occupied the view for approximately 180 km of the flight along the Great Australian Bight. 

The sole highway connecting west and east Australia roughly parallels the Great Australian Bight. Here a section of highway has been dual-purposed as an emergency landing strip for use by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Almost abruptly the camouflage brown Nullabor Plain gives way to bright green cultivation and we were preparing to land at our destination, Port Lincoln.

Forrest Revisited

Situated out on the arid and virtually treeless Nullarbor Plain (Nullarbor: meaning ‘no trees’), and totally exposed, the irony is that this place is called Forrest, which, in spite of the spelling, conjures up images of abundant trees. Not necessarily images of the stalwart explorer and first Premier of Western Australia, John Forrest, who led an expedition across the barren plain in 1870, and after whom this unique outpost has been named.

Kalgoorlie tracking 090 degrees to Forrest

On a previous occasion the Bazflyers staged through Forrest stopping just long enough to refuel. This time besides refueling, an overnight stop was also added, to sample at least a morsel of the location’s unique history. Nowadays only two people, a married couple, live at Forrest. A far cry from the settlement that it used to be. 

Forrest railway station on the Trans Continental Railway

The 478 km section of railway line through Forrest is the longest stretch of dead-straight track in the world.

Nullabor panorama captured at Forrest

Forrest came into being in 1917 as a maintenance depot along the great Trans-Continental Railway connecting Adelaide in the East and Perth on the West Coast. Of particular interest to the Bazflyers was the vital role Forrest subsequently played in the evolution of Australian air transport. The first airplane passenger service across Australia took off in 1929 using three-engine Hercules aircraft, operated by West Australian Airways. The journey with these airplanes between Adelaide and Perth took 16 hours flying time and Forrest, a convenient half way location, became an overnight staging post for passengers and crew. A hanger to accomodate 4 airplanes was built along with hostel accomodation for 14 passengers, crew and ground staff. The original hanger provided shelter for ZK-BAZ but sadly nothing of the former hostel remains.

The original Forrest hanger.

With the advent of faster aircraft, the need for an overnight passenger stop was no longer necessary. However, Forrest continued in its role as a critical refuelling point for civil and military aircraft crossing from one side of the Continent to the other.  During WW2 is was a joint RAAF and USAF station. The private owner of today’s Forrest still provides fuel for passing aircraft and overnight hospitality for those who have a nostalgic interest in the past, or indeed just happen to need a bed for the night.

The old Forrest school house provided comfortable Bazflyer accomodation. 

Forrest Airport sunset

Boulder

Last time the Bazflyers dropped into Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport a seriously threatening weather system brewing off the South West corner of the Continent precipitated an overnight stay only that was followed early the next morning with a precautionary departure heading East. Just as well; that system moved rapidly unleashing its fury with snow dumps across the South Eastern States and a few days later it bestowed similar treatment upon New Zealand. Fortunately, the Bazflyers managed to stay ahead of that weather system all the way home to the Baz Base, Lake Taupo, New Zealand.

Esperance to Kalgoorlie-Boulder

An opportunity to do the Kalgoorlie sightseeing missed on the previous visit was eagerly anticipated. Furthermore, this time there were no ominous weather systems anywhere on the horizon.

Spectacular landscapes on the way to Kalgoorlie 

Kalgoorlie came into existence following a discovery by three prospectors back in 1893 of nearly 100 ounces of gold. It didn’t take long before the lode was occupied by thousands of miners when Kalgoorlie became the richest gold deposit in the world.

In the day there was a hotel on every corner and several more in between.

Evidence that copious sums of money flowed freely can been seen today in the grand architecture of that time. An excellent example being the Town Halls respectively build in the adjoining rival settlements of Kalgoorlie and Boulder. 

Seating in the Kalgoorlie Town Hall where opera singer Dame Melba would perform to a packed house.

Not to be outdone the municipality of Boulder commissioned Philip Goatcher, the world’s highest paid scene painter of that period, to paint a drop curtain for the stage. This curtain is thought to be the world’s only remaining example of Goatcher’s scene paintings...and it is in Boulder!

Albany

“Jandakot Tower, BAZ ready”....“BAZ cleared for takeoff”. With that the Comanche throttle was edged forward, propeller going to full rpm, airspeed increasing, the magic of flight. Once again the Bazflyers were in the air continuing their journey south following the coastline to where the Continent of Australia meets the Great Southern Ocean. Destination, the town of Albany.

West Australia’s southern coastline and the Great Southern Ocean.

The isolation and sheer force of the Southern Ocean was unexpected. The unrestrained and relentless ocean sculpturing a raw coastline – think cliff faces carved out by crashing waves, natural rock formations in the shape of giant bridges, and remote, white sandy inlets with turquoise-coloured water lapping at the shore.

Albany was revealed as a very old settlement strategically situated at the head of King George Sound. A town that has significant ties to World War I, being the departure point for the majority of Anzac troops going to Europe during the war. The first convoy departed 1 November 1914. It comprised 38 ships carrying 29,000 men and women with more than 7,000 horses.

Looking out over King George Sound where ships carrying New Zealand and Australian troops assembled prior to embarking for what was to be World War One. Thousands of them were never to return home.

National ANZAC Centre at Albany, an incredibly moving memorial to all the men and women who were ANZACs. 

Tree Climbing

There’s absolutely nothing remotely challenging about flying an airplane. Well, that’s not exactly true but it was a Bazflyer verdict after confronting perhaps Australia’s scariest vertigo inducing tourist experience.

Pemberton is a former timber town in the southwest corner of Western Australia, surrounded by some of the tallest trees on earth, centuries-old Karris that grow upwards of 70 metres high. Around Pemberton three of these beautiful monsters were repurposed as fire lookout trees and in regular summer use for decades. It is an entirely reasonable theory that if you can get above the forest canopy, you can see whether there are any fires in the distance.

Rendered redundant by technology these former fire-lookout trees are nowadays there for anyone to climb...that is, anyone silly enough to risk life and limb. To get up there...all of the way to the top...the only way up is a worryingly unprotected spiral of metal pegs hammered into the side of the tree.

There's no harness. There's nothing to clip on to. And there's nothing to catch you if you fall. The only concession to “nanny-state” is a sign at the bottom. It’s entirely up to the climber to not make any mistakes. Perhaps that’s why no one’s ever died climbing these trees. Health and safety experts should take note...the survival instinct has an incredible ability to trump natural clumsiness when sure-footed concentration is required. And the tree climbing episode of one Bazflyer can vouch for that....!

Signage is the only concession to health and safety.

It’s a long lonely 56 metre climb all the way to the very top.

Climbing the spiral of metal pegs hammered into the side of the tree.

Cape Leeuwin

For centuries strategically placed lighthouses have stood like guardian angels in the night, guiding passing ships and warning of nearby danger. Standing white, tall and deliberate at Australia’s most southwestern extremity, where the Great Southern Ocean collides with the Indian Ocean, is the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. 

This the tallest of Australia’s mainland lighthouses, it’s lamp at 56 metres above sea level, has been flashing the same code every night for more than 122 years. From 1955 until 1992, Cape Leeuwin also provided navigation services to aircraft. When the Bazflyers visited today only some blocks of concrete, once the foundations of a high radio antenna, remained as evidence of what was once the Cape Leeuwin (NDB) Non Directional Beacon. 

NDB beacons transmit a continuous radio signal in Morse code and for Cape Leeuwin this was the relevant dots and dashes for the letters “AXB”. In the same way as a lighthouse is critical to shipping navigation, so once were NDB’s for aircraft. Today this function has been almost ubiquitously supplanted by GPS. The NDB receiver equipment that once guided the Bazflyer’s airplane, Comanche ZK-BAZ safely along airways in the sky, was ironically discarded in favour of GPS technology about the same time as the Cape Leeuwin NDB was decommissioned.  

Cape Leeuwin lighthouse

Climb 176 steps to the top and this is the view

Two oceans collide at this point

Fly past a few days later

Surfers Point

Margret River sits squarely in the middle of West Australia’s internationally renowned wine producing region. Of course great wine usually begets great food. Not to be disappointed even a cursory glance around reveals the region offers top examples of almost every type of cuisine more often embodying local produce. The local coffee was not too bad either. Then there’s extraordinary architecture on show, amazing vistas and unexpectedly, world famous surf breaks.

Since 1958 surfers have travelled to Margret River from near and far for the famous waves. Surfers Point reputedly has some of the most consistent, spectacular, high quality surf on earth. Unfortunately conditions when the Bazflyers visited  were not favourable to board riders, but the very strong on-shore wind appeared perfect for a few hardcore kite surfers. 

Indeed, it was very windy at Surfers Point 

West Australian coastline near Surfers Point

Surfers code of ethics 

Comanche Fellowship

What could be more satisfying than a disparate group of friends who together share a spirited outlook to fly through the air and enjoy life as much as possible. This is the story of “Comanche-5”, a name first appended to a formation of five Piper Comanche airplanes and the associated fellowship of ten aviators who came together in 2011 for a 10-week flying safari through the Coral Sea group of South Pacific Islands. http://bazflyer.blogspot.com/2011/08/run-to-new-caledonia.html

Comanche-5’s formative journey began on Norfolk Island then meandered exploring the Southwestern Pacific countries of New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Radio communications along the way required HF equipment that was not ubiquitous to all of the five Comanche airplanes. A work-around solution was for one of the aircraft to assume responsibility for all HF radio communications and thus the international call-sign “Comanche-5” was born. 

Since then members of the group have reconvened on a number of occasions for extended flying adventures even if this had to be “Comanche-3” or “Comanche-4”. What was the catalyst that initially brought the ageing aviators together and cemented such a strong fellowship? They all own and fly Piper Comanche airplanes.

Bazflyer in Outback Australia with Piper Comanche ZK-BAZ 

Comanche-4 (2018)

Following a unanimous decision ZK-BAZ remained at Jandakot Airport in favour of a road trip from Perth for a few days at Margret River.

Jandakot

Without fanfare it too soon became the day for the Bazflyers to leave Geraldton and fly ZK-BAZ further south along the Australian West Coast for a few days in the West Australian State capital city of Perth. A check on the forecast weather along the way indicated possible thunderstorms and lightning around the Perth area in the afternoon. 

Flight route south into Jandakot Airport. Situated just 20 kilometres south of Perth’s International Airport. The General Aviation airport of Jandakot is the busiest airport in Australia for aircraft movements. 

As prudent flight planning would have it, the Bazflyers scheduled an early morning departure out of Geraldton so as to be safely on the ground at Perth’s Jandakot Airport well ahead of any forecast thunderstorms. Thunderstorms do not mix well with light aircraft flying. Add a bit of lightning to the mix and the resulting brew is definitely a cocktail to stay well clear of. Later in the afternoon, knowing BAZ was securely picketed on the aircraft parking area in front of the Royal Perth Aero Club, we smugly observed the awe and majesty of a thunderstorm and lightning display while seated on the balcony of our accommodation overlooking the Swan River.

Thunderstorms over Perth

Thunderstorm activity as shown on weather radar

Population of the City of Perth is a bit over 2 million. Lots of parks, cycle paths, great highways and so clean. Overall, a very impressive place.

Geraldton

Today’s flight from Kalbarri south to Geraldton saw the Bazflyers in the air for only about 45 minutes. The weather was pretty ordinary. A very brisk onshore wind and low broken cloud favoured following the coastline rather than enduring an uncomfortable ride over the land. Alighting on Geraldton’s 2km long runway occurred with a 25 knot headwind that made for a very short landing roll but then a long taxi to the designated turnoff and parking area.. 

Geraldton is the largest settlement visited by the Bazflyers since leaving the Gold Coast to fly west nearly 3-weeks ago. A city with a population of 40,000, Geraldton is reputedly in the midst of economic expansion. Land availability is good, housing prices are affordable and existing infrastructure is well established. A drive around the town quickly supported this. The local economy is underpinned by agriculture, mining, and oil and gas activity. All this as well as an idyllic seaside city that locals recognise as Geraldton.

On top of the highest ground overlooking the town is a poignant memorial to the crew of the HMAS Sydney http://bazflyer.blogspot.com/2018/10/carnarvon.html with a striking bronze statue of ‘The Waiting Woman’. She appears anxiously leaning into the wind, her gaze fixed patiently on the distant horizon, waiting for the sailors to come home. She perhaps unwittingly adds a touch of hope to this site of contemplation that honours and remembers the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for freedom.