Flying in a Land Down Under

Red Center to the Wet Tropics

Our general idea was to fly down Australia’s East coast from North to South. Therefore we left the Red Center in a Northeasterly direction towards Cairns.

From the Red Center to the Wet Tropics

We decided to break the journey in Winton, YWTN. We left Birdsville early, to avoid the worst of the bumps. It was an enjoyable flight along the Diamantina River. This is again not a real river for most of the time but it’s very impressive from the air. Landscape changes from desert-like around Birdsville, where no agriculture seems to be possible, to a little greener around Winton, where sheep are raised.

Leaving Birdsville

The Diamantina River (in the background, we’re actually over a tributary)

Another circle over the Diamantina River

Short final at YWTN, it gets a little greener here

These guys saluted us at the airfield fence

Winton is a real town compared to Birdsville but it is still tiny – and it is hot! The number of attractions won’t overwhelm anybody but it’s an interesting place for an afternoon. Waltzing Matilda was written here (by an artist named Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson) and performed for the first time at the North Gregory Hotel, which is an attraction by itself. The hotel burned down several times but was reconstructed each time. We stayed at its current incarnation which is a lovingly persevere Art Deco building. Besides that, there is a machinery museum which caters to visitors with rather special interests. We enjoyed it a lot.

The Australian icon Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson who wrote Waltzing Matilda

The North Gregory Hotel

A road train, another Australian icon

At the machinery museum

For our flights in Australia, all VFR so far, we used AvPlan EFB on a one month trial. It’s not bad, a bit like ForeFlight in the old days with bitmap charts. Of course, it takes a while to get used to it, but then it’s quite OK. They offer different “plans” to subscribe to and only the most expensive one offers IFR planning and filing. We were not sure if we would need that.

Our next destination was Cairns, YBCS, a relatively busy airport. Clouds were forecast over the mountains of the Great Dividing Range so I thought it would be a good time to try IFR. I compiled a route of four or five intersections and airways in-between and used autorouter with its manual IFR feature. I had checked the Australian AIP and the addressing autorouter came up with was exactly as described. I filed it and it worked like a charm. So the basic VFR subscription of AvPlan EFB would be good enough for us.

The flight to Cairns was in the clear for most of the time so we could admire the changing landscape once again. The first real rivers appeared once we were closer to the Great Dividing Range and the approach along the wet tropical coast was spectacular, especially as we arrived from the dry center.

Lined up in Winton

Still rather dry around Winton

The first real river we spotted

Intercepting the localizer

Final 15 YBCS

RM tied down in Cairns

Cairns is the epicenter of tourism in North Queensland with a stunning setting, a waterfront with lots of pubs and restaurants and a myriad of activities and tours available. We decided to take the historic train up to Kuranda and return down by cable car the day after we arrived and it was a really fun endeavor.

Historic train to Kuranda

Cable car from Kuranda down to the coast

Already on the day of our arrival in Cairns people warned us of the approaching cyclone. We checked all forecasts available and learned that the cyclone, Jasper as it was called later, was still quite a bit away. We now had two alternatives: we could either rush it and fly south or wait it out. We opted for the latter but decided to relocate to Mareeba, YMBA. This little AD is just 15 Minutes away but it’s located behind the mountains which we thought would give shelter from the worst of the storm.

Weather was still great when we wanted to do the little hop, so we went VFR, of course. Cairns has a separate delivery frequency where we asked for a clearance with the engine already running. However, we were told they couldn’t find our flight plan. No wonder we said, we hadn’t filed one. In this case delivery told us, we couldn’t fly, no clearance available without flight plan. No exception was made, not even for a little brown Mooney. I think, I had read the AIP but I can’t remember that rule. Anyway, we had to shut down the engine and file a flight plan. We hadn’t yet setup the NAIPS, the Australian AIS portal, correctly but that was of course our fault. I used autorouter to lose not too much time and it worked fine again. I couldn’t insert VFR reporting points this way, but ATC was graceful and gave us a sensible clearance to Mareeba.

The flight through the valley along the little peaks was delightful but very short. Mareeba’s airfield is an active place, with an aero club, flight training, and a repair shop.

Departing Cairns

Hopping over the mountains

Tying down the aircraft in Mareeba

Thanks to all of you! Enjoy the holidays in the air or on the ground and have a peaceful Christmas. BTW no reason to be envious at the moment, it’s raining cats and dogs here in Sydney.

@Dan – spoiler alert: RM is fine, nothing happened. As always when traveling things went completely different from what we feared or expected. You are right, she apparently is not very susceptible to strong winds while parked. When we were on the Azores five years ago, she was parked on a remote apron in terrible wind one night. We had tied her down, but tie down points were too far apart and we had to use long ropes. We didn’t get much sleep that night and checked almost every METAR that was issued. The strongest I saw was gusts at 48 knots and I was really nervous. In the morning we went to the airport an found her standing in the exact position we had left her.

Thanks @Capitaine I hadn’t heard of that one. I‘ll download the book so I‘ve something to read in case the weather stays that poor.

@172driver did you have good weather over the reef? I think I have a few nice shots in the pipe for one of the next installments. We went out twice and had one good and one not so good day. The difference is huge.

The Cyclone Diaries

Mooney owners are a friendly and hospitable bunch worldwide. Not only did we have the privilege of making friends with other owners all over Europe, from Lisbon to Helsinki, we also were generously invited by fellow straight tail pilots in both Americas.

Like Europe with EMPOA, Australia has a Mooney owners association: AMPA and of course we contacted them before we arrived down under. It turned out that Aussie Mooney owners even manage to beat the friendliness and hospitality we received in other parts of the world. We got invited by an overwhelming number of pilots around the country.

Like the rest of The Australian population, most Mooney owners live in the bottom right corner of the continent. However, Jane and Simon are a Mooney couple as we are, both are avid pilots and they live near Cairns in North Queensland. Their invitation was the first we followed due to our route and we were overwhelmed by their generosity. They invited us for dinner the first evening and we talked a lot about aircraft. Of course the approaching cyclone was a subject as well and they agreed with us that if we wanted to wait it out, relocating RM to Mareeba would be a good idea. We said we would try to rent a car in Mareeba but they said we don’t have to, as they had three cars and would lend us one of them. They gave us the key right away and even parked the car at Mareeba airfield so we could drive away after landing. And what a car it was: a thirty year old Toyota Hilux pickup truck – I loved it.

At that point it was still completely unclear where the cyclone Jasper, as it was called now, would hit the coast and how strong it would be, however, we would have two or three days with sunny weather. Most locals we talked to weren’t overly concerned. Jane and Simon were busy the next days but they recommended that we drive up the coast via Cape Tribulation to Cooktown. We did as we were told and had two really nice days in the wet tropics.

The ideal vehicle for the area

Beach north of Mossman

Alexandra lookout

The jungle at Cape Trib

Beach at Cape Trib (again strictly no swimming because of the stingers)

The road north of Cape Trib is unsealed and involves river crossings

A vista of the jungle

Captain Cook, Cooktown is named in his honor

Endeavour River estuary from Grassy Hill

Lighthouse on Grassy Hill

When we returned to Mareeba, the Australian met service expected Jasper to hit the coast very close to Cairns. It wasn’t forecast to be a particularly strong cyclone, but most aircraft at the field sought shelter in a hangar. Jane and Simon had a friend with a private hangar and they asked him if there was space for a Mooney. No problem he said, his little Tiger didn’t occupy it completely. Even though we weren’t too concerned, it gave us a lot of peace of mind once we had pushed RM in and closed the hangar doors.

Jasper apparently wanted to meet RM

This is Jasper in Windy’s visualization

RM wasn’t interested in meeting Jasper

RM with here new mate, the little Tiger

The day Jasper hit, everything was closed in Mareeba, all the shops, supermarkets and restaurants. It was a bit of an exaggeration, it was really windy and rainy but not any worse than a stormy autumn day in Europe. Jasper apparently was a wimp, but he wasn’t completely done with us yet. We took a tiny apartment and prepared ourselves for a wait. Our friends invited to their hangar and for dinner. During the day we drove around and visited sites that would probably really nice in better weather.

Our friends’ Hangar

The curtain fig tree in the rain

Driving in the rain

Might be really nice here in better weather

After two days Jasper showed what he was good at: he was persistent. The gusts even down in Cairns never exceeded 40 knots or so, but this system just didn’t want to move on. It rained and rained and rained. We tried to make the best out of it. One evening we cooked pasta in our apartment, the other evening we went to a Chinese place with our friends. We visited waterfalls in the rain that were only a trickle normally, so we were told. Still Jasper wouldn’t want to leave.

Jasper outside, pasta on the table

Normally a trickle, now an impressive waterfall

Of course we checked the forecast several times each day but it wouldn’t really improve. On the fifth day there were at least short dry periods and there were no embedded thunderstorms but the forecast for the next days was worse again. We decided it was time to leave for Townsville. This was a rather short hop but in contrast to the Cairns and Mareeba area the weather there was supposed to be nice the next days. Our friends met us at the hangar but we had to wait for a while for the rain to get at least a little weaker. We had filed IFR of course and it wasn’t the most pleasant flight.

Waiting for a little less rain

Departing Mareeba

Not in a shower for a while

Approaching Townsville

Rain again after landing

It proved to be the right decision to leave the area in hindsight. Jasper stayed for a couple of more days and still wasn’t short of rain. In fact the airport in Cairns was closed the next day because it was flooded, it didn’t reopen for several days. It kept raining at our friend’s place as well, but nothing was damaged and they’re fine.