MADE IT!

MADE IT!

Having successfully flown myself from the SE coast of Australia (Sydney) to the NW coast (Broome) I dip my toes in the surf of the Indian Ocean. A cigar followed.

Day 9 - Kununurra YPKU to Broome YBRM

Side note: I'm keeping a Lessons Learned page updated.

We spent three days and four nights in Kununurra. That's one more of each than originally planned, but when we checked the weather the evening before our scheduled departure, we found that there were high winds forecast at all altitudes between YPKU and YBRM. Since the ground along our track was fairly rough, that meant turbulence, and a fair bit of it, so we delayed.

I should take a moment to note that we weren't just idling in YPKU. The first day, we went on a boat tour of the Ord River Irrigation Area, which sounds dry, but absolutely isn't (see what I did there?) This area is different from most of Western Australia in that it has more fresh water than it knows what to do with - and that was the basis of the Ord River Scheme.

The river was dammed to create Lake Argyle, a kilometers-long and dozens-of-meters deep lake, high in the hills. Some 55 km downstream (to the north, towards the sea) another dam was placed - the Diversion Dam. The first dam collects the runoff of some 40,000 hectares of catchment area, and this is even more impressive than it sounds - during the wet season in 2011, apparently, the lake rose 1.5 meters in a single day. For context, that 1.5 meters is enough to keep Perth and Melbourne together in fresh water for seven years. Unfortunately, there's no way to get the water to Perth or Melbourne.

The purpose of that first dam is to hold that reservoir of water. There is a 30 MW hydroelectric power plant built into it, which provides power for the Kununurra/Wyndham area and for the Argyle Diamond Mine on the southwest side of the lake. Between the dams is kept at a relatively constant level - whereas prior to the dams, the river (which winds thorugh some very steep gorges) would vary in depth up to 4 or 5 meters, resulting in a blasted-looking landscape, now it is kept relatively constant - and the river path has flowered. There is an abundance of flora along it, and a riot of birds, and of course, crocodiles. The estuarine crocodiles, we were told (saltwater) seem quite happy to walk around the lower Diversion Dam and swim upstream into the relatively peaceful and food-heavy area above it. In addition, the river drops some ten meters over fifteen kilometers, which makes for some serious current. We passed several canoers - I considered that a bit brave, given the number of crocs we also passed, but was told that the crocs weren't really eating at the moment since it was too cold.

The locals, with the exuberance displayed by most Australians I've met so far, offer tours of the river. Boats go up from Kununurra in the morning to the dam, where they switch passengers for those who were bussed out and then run back. The fun part about this initially? The boats. The tour company guide explained that they went to a naval architect in Darwin and said they wanted a boat that would carry fifty people in comfort at a speed of approximately 60 km/hr while using less than 400 liters of fuel per trip. He designed them a flat, stepped-hull tour boat with a long curved roof and a 300 horsepower engine on it. The problem was that when tested, it used over 600 liters of gas because the boat had to be kept at full power, and even then wouldn't fully go up onto the hull step. The tour company decided in true Australian fashion that the only answer was more power, and stuck three matched 350 horsepower V8 four-stroke Yamaha engines on it.

Their first test, it reached 80 km/hr before the roof started to act like a wing and cause it to flutter off the water. Oh, and it used 300 liters for the trip. As they said, grinning, more power meant less gas.

I can verify that this boat is hilariously awesome. It's faster than most of the ski boats I"ve been on, and carries fifty people. The guides are expert at horsing it down a river that in places is only about twice the width of the boat, and in others has trees reaching in to touch both sides. Exhilarating doesn't begin to cover it. If you take the Triple J tour of the Ord River, make sure you get put on the 'Peregrine', which is the big boat. They have that one, a two-engine and a single-engine. While I'm sure they're all of a speed, the ludicrousness of the size of the big one coupled with that speed makes it a laugh in delight sort of trip.

Oh, and the wildlife.

Crocs, of course. A few wallabies and roos, bounding away over the banks. Birds, birds, birds - from pelicans to the everpresent galahs to egrets to spoonbills. I didn't get a picture, but one of my tour mates got a great shot of a black cockatoo with a bright red slash on its tail. Gorgeous. And near the end of the tour, an island with no less than four osprey nests on it - two of which had ospreys in them.

Along the way, the tour stops to explain the river topography, to explain the benefits and costs of the irrigation system, to give you facts and figures about the project. If they are to be believed (and I see no reason they wouldn't be) the project has resulted in an increase of 300% of the species count of birds on the river, as the birds are attracted to the lush vegetation resulting from the stable water levels. In addition, the actual reason it was done - over 40,000 hectares of land are under irrigation below the diversion dam (which sends that water into the irrigation channels) - and there is capacity for perhaps twice that to be added. The cost of this project was around $60 million AUD (in 1960 dollars) which, while quite a bit, seems like a pittance for the benefits it appears to have accrued.

Anyway. The other days we did touristy stuff (including visiting a tourist-facing distillery called the Hoochery, a sandalwood plantation, and some local rock cutting shops which work with a local multicolored stone called zebra rock). The 'extra' day the tour went off to look at Wyndham, the local inlet port, while my pax and I walked around Kununurra - a small town in the middle of the vastness of Western Australia.

Oh, and while there, we managed to find a shop at Broome (Broome Air Maintenance) who said that sure, they could take a whack at fixing SDN's nose gear. So, heartened, we got up early the morning of the 18th and headed to the airport.

Our flight path took us from Kunurra to the southern end of Prince Regent's Gorge, a 40 mile long cut wending its way from the southeast to the northwest, opening into the St. George Basin (an inlet from the coast to the north). Although it's apparently loads of fun to fly this gorge at 500 feet (modulo helicopters from cruise ships that buzz it) the winds were around 25 kts directly across the gorge, which meant that even high enough to be safe, it was going to be super bumpy, so we passed over it at around 4,500. It was still gorgeous, although we didn't get to see the various falls and the like from close up.

At the basin, we turned to the west southwest parallel to the coast and flew to the Walcott Inlet. From there, we turned a bit north and flew to another famous local landscape feature, the Horizontal Falls. The tidal flow here floods through a narrow cut in the rocks, leading to a roiling basin of whitewater on the low side. It looked beautiful, even from our height. Afterwards, we turned southwest and flew to a small strip serving a town out on the mudflats of the coast named Derby (YDBY). Landing at Derby gingerly due to the still-bodged nosewheel, and avoiding the various birds who were unconcernedly gathering at the runway approach end, we waited while the other two airplanes fueled up (SDN has twice their fuel cap, so we didn't bother, wanting to leave the airplane light for the mechanics) and then took off and flew the 90 NM to Broome.

Broome is an international airport, probably because it's a resort town on the northwest corner of the country and thus is close to Indonesia etc. It's also a regional and sightseeing aviation hub, so it has an active CTA. The tour pilots had warned me that Broome is a bit particular - they want you to report your position using your bearing from Broome and distance, but if you say 'radial' they get all tetchy because they don't have a VOR there, so it's not really a radial. :-P

The weather had been clear and blue on the way from Kununurra, albeit with a 22-26kt wind from the east. It was under 5 kts on the surface at Derby, and clouds were starting to show in the west. When we took off from Derby and tracked for Broome, there was a significant layer forming at around 5000 feet, so we stayed at 3500 where the air was clearer (at least 10-15 miles visibility). We started at 2500, but it was a bit bumpy so we went up another 1000 (where, it turned out, it wasn't much better - but it wasn't too bad).

I ended up right behind VH-ULE (one of the constants of having a faster airplane). Since I wanted to hear Val check in with Broome Tower first, though, I throttle SDN back to 'slow cruise' (19/21) and managed to stay mostly behind her and echeloned off to the right. She called up Broome at around 30 NM. Waited for her to finish, then chimed in right after: "Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November."

"Aircraft calling Broome, say again please."

"Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November." (reminded myself to keep it a bit slow - I talk Noo Yawk, and it's not as rushed and clipped out here).

"Sierra Delta November, Broome Tower."

"Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November is Cessna One Eight Two, three zero miles from Broome on a zero six four bearing at three thousand, five hundred inbound, estimating arrival one five with information Zulu, requesting clearance."

"Sierra Delta November, Broome Tower, you are cleared Broome on the zero six four bearing, please notify when you are ready for descent and please notify whether you have traffic Uniform Lima Echo in sight."

"Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November cleared Broome on zero six four, has Uniform Lima Echo in sight, will notify when ready to descend, thank you."

"Sierra Delta November, please notify if you overtake Uniform Lima Echo."

"Sierra Delta November will notify of overtaking Uniform Lima Echo."

So we headed in. As we continued on, it began to rain a fair bit from the layer above us. Other than that, visibility was still at least twenty miles, because I could essentially see the airport, so I wasn't concerned - we were still at least 1500 feet below the clouds, and 3400 or so AGL, so VFR clearance was fine. After about ten miles, I decided that while I could keep behind Val, I probably couldn't stay far enough back for comfort. "Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November requests permission to orbit once for separation from Uniform Lima Echo."

"Sierra Delta November, Broome Tower - you are cleared to orbit right, report complete."

Banked into a standard rate turn to the right and concentrated on staying level with the rain smearing my vision of the horizon slightly across the windshield. Came around two minutes later - hooray standard rate - and aligned with Broome again. Reported complete. Broome Tower told me to vector direct for a six mile final to Two Eight since I was only around eight miles from the airport, I acknowledged and turned left so as to intercept the runway heading far enough out. When I turned final at five and a half miles (whoops) the frequency was busy, so I didn't get to report in until I was around four miles from the threshold. "Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November is on a four mile final for Two Eight Broome."

"Sierra Delta November, cleared to land Two Eight Broome."

I've started disliking long straight in approaches, because most of my experience judging heights and distances and speeds is in circuit approaches, and few airports here in Australia have VASI or PAPI systems, so I find that I tend to come in a bit flat and end up dragging in. Here, though, there was a VASI system, so I trundled on until it had flipped from four whites to two white/two red, then pulled power back and added in the first notch of flaps, perhaps two miles out. The wind was a bit tricky - there was a few gusts of tailwinds, so I left a bit of extra speed on, still concerned about the nose gear despite the long expanse of runway in front of me. Right before I crossed the threshold, it swung to a left crosswind of about six knots, so I crabbed it a bit and ended up touching down harder than I wanted to, but without bouncing or otherwise embarrassing myself. Held the nose off as long as I could, then let it down and made the turnoff. "Broome Tower, Sierra Delta November is clear of Two Eight Broome."

"Sierra Delta November, contact ground 121.7, good day."

"Contacting ground 121.7, thank you, good day." Flipped the freq. "Broome Ground, Sierra Delta November at Golf-One."

"Sierra Delta November, Broome Ground, do you wish GA parking?"

"Broome Ground, I"m looking for Hangar 2, Broome Air Maintenance, if possible."

"Sierra Delta November, can't help you there, but you're cleared ahead on Golf, hold short of the ramp - you're probably looking for one of the shops off to your right across the apron. Hold for Cessna crossing right to left at apron."

"Broome ground, Sierra Delta November, thanks." Taxied ahead and held at the apron entry for another 182 to pass me heading right to left, then looked over and sure enough, big sign BROOME AIR MAINTENANCE. Taxied over there, shut down and headed into the open hangar which had a Skywagon and a pair of 182s in various states of disassembly within. Asked for Wayne, was pointed to the office, where I found Wayne (the boss) behind a desk. "Hi, Wayne, I'm with SDN, the 182...?"

"Oh, right, nose wheel, was it? Is it outside?"

"Yep, got it right outside the hangar."

"Fine then, let's have a look." He headed out, handing me off to the office admin to trade details. I gave her the contact info for the airplane owners (Airborne, back in Camden) and my own local cell number, then headed back out. Wayne, my pax and I and one of his guys pushed SDN out of the way so they could get one of the Skywagons (which was almost done) out, and Wayne said "We'll give you a call, no worries."

So we headed over to the GA gate to meet the rest of the tour. We did so, found a couple of rental cars, got our rooms at the Habitat Resort, and wandered back into town to look at pearl shops and whatever was there. My pax and I were finishing our ice cream and heading back to the cars to meet our tour mates when the shop sent me an SMS: "You plane is done!"

I liked the sound of that.

So we cadged a ride back to the airport (was only a couple km or so) from two of our tour mates, and they were kind enough to wait at the GA gate while my pax and I picked up SDN (which consisted of getting thrown keys, and told 'mind taxiing it out? We have some seaplanes on the way in...'). I asked if they needed anything from me - signatures, etc - and was told nope, Airborne and they had been in touch, all set. I like the level of formality here. So we fired SDN back up and I called up ground to ask for repositioning, taxied her to 'intinerant parking' and I phoned the Mobil number. They sent the truck over, he topped up our tanks, and we tied SDN down, having caused our tour mates to have to wait for us around 20 minutes, but they said no problems.

Afterwards, we drove to Cable Beach. I considered this important. As the sun was setting, I took my shoes off and waded into the Indian Ocean. Standing in the surf, I lit a cigar and considered that I had accomplished what I had set out to do - fly across Australia. From Sydney in the southeast (where I had at least gone to the end of Sydney harbor on foot) I found myself on the northwest corner, standing in the Indian Ocean, and having a cigar. All in all, it was a really, really good feeling.

This being Australia, of course, the surf was littered with dead jellyfish ("stingers" in the local warning-sign nomenclature) but I managed to avoid any encounters with live ones. We trooped back to the hotel for a Chinese dinner on the verandah, and all was right with the world.

Day 6 - Tindal YPTN to Kununurra YPKU

Day 6 - Tindal YPTN to Kununurra YPKU

Woke up early in Katherine, in the Northern Territories. Had the now-familiar 6:30 AM breakfast and then assembled gear for the bus which took us back to the airport. My pax and another tour member had gone for a quick walk across the road - because across the road was the bush, essentially - so we met them on the way and headed off.

The first leg today was a hop of around 110 NM from Tindal to Cooinda, by the way of the Katherine Gorge. The mouth of the Gorge is some 10 miles north of Tindal Aerodrome. The RAAF facilities were still shut when we left, so no tower and no Control Zone in effect. We used CTAF for the departure. I went out last, as I was busy programming the Katherine Gorge waypoint into the G1000. We took off and headed out.

The terrain was quite different, today - still very deserted bush, but today we flew over a low plateau with significant rock formations atop it for approximately 90 NM. We came off the other edge of the plateau and descended into Cooinda YCOO. There were several bush burns going on, including a pair of them bracketing the airfield - and this airfield is gravel, a first for me. I've done grass landings (a couple of them, practicing during the SDN checkout, on a short grass strip) but never gravel. Reminded myself that this trip is about stretching my piloting skills, and read up on the soft field procedure.

Came in to Cooinda second behind VH-ULE, piloted by Val the tour leader. She gave us a field report while we were on crosswind - surface good, a bit soft. On downwind, we passed directly over one of the bush fires, which was a bit of a mistake - there were ten or twelve large birds circling in the thermals generated by the fire. Whoops. Didn't hit any of them - in a small plane, you have to mostly use the force and trust the birds, if you get into them, because they obviously maneuver much more swiftly/sharply than you do!

Came around to base, then final. Came in with full flaps, held it off, and touched down softly - held the nosewheel off as long as possible, then let it down gently, holding it high with elevator. The gravel was soft - I could feel the wheels mushing - but otherwise was very well-behaved. We slowed to a stop, then back-taxied to the apron at the approach end of 09, and parked next to Val's ULE.

We were in Cooinda to take a boat cruise and have a quick lunch. We had gotten in a bit early, so we walked a km or so to the Kakadu Regional Aboriginal Peoples' Cultural Center. This is a nicely done small museum, displaying Aboriginal history and culture exhibits. Learning that I was 'balanda' (non-Aboriginal) in the local language (whose name I have now forgotten), I also learned that the aborigines in fact had nearly two hundred languages when Australia was discovered by Europeans. Not dialects - languages. They couldn't talk to each other without learning each others' tongues. Today, as the aboriginal population contracts and consolidates, there are perhaps fifty of these languages surviving, with the number spoken widely down to perhaps twelve.

Afterwards, we walked back through the 1 km bush trail to the lodge and took a quick bus ride over to the boat dock. The cruise was approximately 90 minutes on the Alligator River. I'm not sure if that's an ironic name, because of course it's inhabited by crocodiles. Today, lots of them! We saw perhaps 14 or 16 of the beasts sunning themselves on the banks of the river, and watched a couple of them fishing - areas of grass near the edge suddenly sliding into motion and several barramundi leaping frantically out of the water, trying to escape as the croc closed in. The crocs we saw were all females, according to the guide - as they were all three meters or less. They were salt-water crocodiles - apparently, salt-water crocodiles can live in fresh water quite happily, and being territorial, tend to eat the fresh-water crocodiles, which are smaller. The crocs we saw were light-colored, which indicated that they had just come up from the sea. After a while in fresh water, they turn darker. These beasts are quite unconcerned with large, loud tourist boats. They know darn well that they're the top of the food chain, and they can't be bothered to stop basking just because some curious humans with cameras show up.

The birds were numerous and impressive, and almost as fearless. Egrets, Jabirus, Sea Eagles, Whistling Ducks, Magpie Geese, and others. The birds are all over the place, and they stand and fish on the banks, seemingly completely unconcerned by the crocs basking nearly and lurking in the water at the river's edge. The guide said that he's never seen a bird taken by a croc, although the crocs seem quite willing to have a go if a bird is nearby. Even though the croc is a fast-moving ambush predator, the birds are apparently faster. The Jabiru (which is a Portuguese name, despite there being a town here named that) has recently, according to the guide, been renamed the 'Black-necked Stork.' But, he noted, "They stuffed it again - their necks are green, y'see."

We saw a few wildly colorful kingfishers, some spoonbills, and several other species I can't now remember. They were nearly as unconcerned as the crocs by our presence. In the distance, some brumbys (wild horses) grazed on the wetlands, with a flock of egrets sitting on and around them.

The area around Cooinda, we were told, can flood quite heavily. Aparently, in 2007, it flooded five meters due to heavy rainfall - the staff had to be evacuated by airplane.

After the cruise and a quick lunch, we took the bus back to the airport and began to preflight for the afternoon's flight to Kununurra, some 275 NM away. The only catch was that Tindal had activated one of their restricted areas - R247 - which meant we had to divert slightly to the north to go around the northern corner of that airspace. I got coordinates for the corner from Val. The other planes pushed back off the gravel parking area in order to start up without pulling gravel into the props, and I did a full preflight - all looked to be in order. Rather than pushing back, we decided to push forward and to the side, onto a grassy area, in the hope that it wouldn't throw gravel as hard. In order to rotate the plane, I pushed down on the tail, lifting the nosewheel off the ground, and swiveled it so we could push it forward. My passenger held up his hand and said "Hey, this doesn't look good."

I walked around front. Sure enough, there was a spray of dark oil running down the nosewheel strut onto the nosewheel fairing. Nope, that didn't look good. I waved back the tour pilots for a second opinion, and we took a look. We popped the cowling off and had a look inside - there was no oil on the engine, and no oil inside the cowling. It was fairly immaculate. That was a relief - it meant it almost certainly wasn't engine oil. I had put a quart of oil in at Tindal, and I wondered if it was overflow out the breather. We pushed the airplane a bit - and the nosewheel oleo strut collapsed entirely, sending another flow of (what was now clearly hydraulic) oil down the fairing.

Sigh.

Well, the good news - it certainly wasn't the engine. The bad news - Cooinda has no facilities, no fuel, no shops, nothing except a small shed for people to wait for buses from the lodge. We had a quick huddle, and the three pilots (myself and the two tour pilots) felt that the best course was to fly on to Kununurra, which is a decent-sized airport and has a few FBOs. They gave me some advice on babying SDN along with the nosewheel low, which I gravely took note of, and then they took off.

The lower prop blade was perhaps six inches off the ground with the nosewheel strut collapsed, which made me a bit concerned. We pushed the plane onto the grassy area, got in, and started her up. I started it as gently as I could, and things seemed fine. I taxied gingerly onto 09, added in ten degrees of flap, and took off, holding the nosewheel off with elevator as soon as airspeed came alive. SDN made some alarming thumping noises in the undercart, but steered fine and came off normally. We climbed out and turned on-course for the restricted area corner waypoint, which I had named CLEAR in the G1000.

As we flew along, we had scattered clouds at approximately 6000 feet. We climbed to 4,500, where I looked wistfully at the clear blue sky above the cloud layer, while we bumped through the haze below - but VFR, my friends, VFR. I remained 1,500 feet clear of the clouds.

As we neared the waypoint turn, I noted that visibility was noticeably decreasing. I began to lose the horizon out in front of us, although I could certainly see at least 8 to 10 nm out. I tried to tune in the AWIS system for Kununurra, but we were still far out of range. Finally I realized that in addition to the haze we had been seeing all along, there were a number of bush fires burning on the surface just to the south of our track ahead, and the wind was out of the southeast, so their smoke was being pushed in a thick plume all the way out to the northwest, across our course. It was akin to seeing a white wall fall across the world. I radioed in to the other planes, who were fifteen or twenty miles behind us at this point (SDN is quicker) and they decided on hearing the report to divert to the south, where they still had a better horizon picture. I looked at the winds and decided that there was a good chance of getting around the source of the haze by doing this, so I diverted as well - more sharply south, since I was closer to the fires.

After five or six minutes, the horizon began to open up again to the west and slightly north of west, so I gave it another few minutes and then hit DIRECT YPKU and ACTIVATE and let SDN take us back around to the right. The ride was getting bumpier as well, but I didn't want to climb due to the clouds scudding by above us, so we accepted it as the price of doing business.

We crossed the Victoria River inlet - a wide area flood plains and drying silt, with a few channels of water meandering through the center - and continued on over formations of striated rock, worn down to low rolling hills with scrubland atop it. The evidence of past bush burns was everywhere - blackened areas with the shocking green of new undergrowth atop it, centered on the burn, looking almost like moldy patches on the tan and reddish sand and rock.

Val offered up bits of tourist information - at one point, we passed over a railway line (the only one we had seen) which she told us was the Adelaide to Darwin line, which had only been completed in the 1990s. A few miles past that, we passed the highway which served the same route. Off to the north of our track, we made out the hazy H-shaped outline of a cleared area which Val explained had been a World War II airbase, which had been abandoned for decades. The taxiways and runways were still visible, if not well defined any longer.

Finally, we caught sight of a line of ridges across our path, and off to the left and ahead the blue glimmer of Lake Argyle, a man-made body of water. Behind that, there was a line of relatively high rock walls, and just over the ridge ahead- Kununurra.

I called on the CTAF, and (as has become our habit) found that the airport which had had zero traffic for the thirty minutes since I came into radio range suddenly had traffic - an outgoing airplane, declaring its intention to head out on a reciprocal of our own course. I diverted to the north a bit, deciding to enter a long base leg rather than a full downwind for 12 Kununurra, and was rewarded with the sight of the reciprocal traffic climbing out a couple of miles off to the south of us.

Just as I entered base, a C210 called in from 15 miles out with the intention of joining a 5 mile final after a straight-in approach, but we were already on base leg. I asked my pax to read the Before Landing checklist.

"Mixture Full Rich?"

"Check."

"Parking brake OFF"?

"Checked and OFF."

"Seats, hatches & harnesses?"

"Seats upright, hatches and harnesses secure."

"Instruments set?"

"One Zero One Three hektoPascals QNH, instruments checked."

"Autopilot OFF?"

"Autopilot OFF."

"Okay, we're ready."

I was adding in my second notch of flaps by that point, and considering my turn final. I left it close in, to get a steeper approach than I had achieved the last few landings, since I needed to baby the nosewheel. I know that sounds contradictory, but I'd been forced to drag in under power a couple times due to needing to extend my circuit for traffic or because headwinds had been greater than I'd expected. I've found that coming in slow almost always, for me at least, means a higher final descent onto the runway, as I have trouble flaring properly when I'm slow. This time, I had a nice long runway with which to bleed speed in ground effect, and I wanted the nosewheel to have no cause to feel offended - I had no interest in prop-striking my rental airplane.

Came in, flared, held it off, held it off - and got what I wanted, which was a kiss on the main gear only, allowing me to hold the nose off with the rest of my rapidly decaying airspeed. When I felt the airplane start to sigh and sink, I brought the yoke forward to bring the nose down under control, and when I heard the painful THUMP of the nosewheel strut compressing to min height and metal hitting metal, I braked very very gently and let the airplane come down at its own pace. We still made the turnoff for GA parking halfway down the runway - YPKU isn't a small airport.

We had come in a good half hour ahead of the other tour airplanes, so we headed over to the fueling point. Unfortunately, it was labeled 'BP' and we don't have BP carnet card, so I hopped out after shutting down and asked a gent in the BP truck yard, who told me that Shell had a callout presence. Thanked him, and went back to the plane and got the ERSA which indeed had a callout number for Shell Aviation listed. Called, and a terse voice asked if I was 'chasin' avgas.' I said 'Yep.' He said he'd be back out in five minutes.

Sure enough, the Shell truck powered up and swung out towards us just as the tour planes were coming down. We had him fill the plane - I considered leaving it light in case it made maintenance easier, but even with the tanks full, I can lift the nosewheel by just levering down on the fuselage just ahead of the stabilizer, so it shouldn't be a big deal - and I don't like leaving part-emtpy tanks overnight due to condensation.

So. Checked with one of two FBOs on the field - nope, their maintenance dance card is full. I checked the other, but their maintenance crew had gone home for the day, and I was advised to check in tomorrow morning after 7 AM. So that's what I'll do. We're in Kununurra for two days and three nights - so while I might have to miss some of the local attractions (boat cruise on the lake, a tour of the hoochery, a local scenic flight to a set of rock formations called the Bungle Bungles) I stand a good chance of getting SDN fixed up. The hire agency answered my email and said "Just find a shop to do it and have them call us, they can charge it directly back, no worries."

SDN is a brilliant airplane. I won't hold this against her. Right before we left, the CFI checking me out and I took SDN to the local shop because the strut was low, and they put a shot of nitrogen in the oleo. It was winter in Sydney. We left SDN sittin gat Cooinda, and the temperature got up to easily 30 degrees C during the afternoon - I'm wondering if she just blew or rolled a seal due to overpressure. I'd like to think it wasn't me - I haven't had any noticeably hard landings yet this tour.

Either way, things should be fine. I did a gravel takeoff and a landing, all went OK; worst case, our next stop is Broome which is a fairly big airport, and the tour operator has contacts at a maintenance shop there. I'd fly SDN to Broome in her condition.

That makes me feel like a bit of an actual pilot. Up until now, I've always been hyper-sensitive of anything INOP on the airplane. SDN has a malfed right tank fuel sender, and a dud EGT sensor for one of her cylinders - but I've flown her for five days cross-country now with no problems - and I've done a full cycle with the strut in this condition. I'm quite confident that as long as the weather is decent, I should have no trouble easing her into Broome - unless the winds get high, but the risk over the next few days seems to be mostly clouds and rain showers, not wind. So - we'll see.

More later!

Day 5 - Karumba YKMB to Tindal/Katherine YPTN

Day 5 - Karumba YKMB to Tindal/Katherine YPTN

THE STORY SO FAR:

Woke up early in Karumba point and had a light brekky (toast, some orange/passionfruit juice). We trooped out to the airport, and got there by around 7:45am and started loading the airplanes. I did a preflight. I've noticed that the tour pilots don't do full preflights - I suspect because they were the last people to fly the airplanes, and because they're doing much more streamlined ones - but I have no desire to skimp. I'm well aware of my baby pilot status, and I have a strong desire to have an 'incident-free' flying career.

SDN was in good shape. I sumped the tanks, since we'd fueled at YNTN and flown over to YKMB - so there was some empty space in the tanks, and just in case condensate had formed. Nothing; all clean. Checked the oil - still at 8 quarts, she doesn't seem to burn much oil either. My pax removed the tiedowns while I removed the pitot cover and intake covers, then I did a walkaround. All was well. I shuffled another day of clean clothes into my day bag (my main bag is too big to horse into town every night, so I tend to just stuff a day of clothing into my CPAP bag and bring that plus my gear bag). Filled out movement and fuel logs, then we got into the plane and ran through checklists.

While I was doing that, Val took off in ULE. I managed to get started before Hugh in IRJ, so I took the runway next and we took off to the west, turning right a bit to head up the coast. The day's flight was the complex one involving arbitrary waypoints, but (hooray!) I'd programmed them all in during the flight up from Longreach yesterday and assembled them into a flight plan in the G1000. I hand-flew it, though - went to 500 feet for a while, then 1000 feet. We followed the coastline for around 250 NM, flying along mangrove swamps and inlets and a couple of river deltas. It was gorgeous - the Gulf of Carpenteria on the right, and bright turquoise water along the shore, with mangrove trees stretching all the way out into the gulf itself. In that 250 miles, we saw one road, which I found out later was a recent addition, probably by the military (dirt); some 4-5 speedboats, and nothing else. No habitation. No houses, no roads, no power lines, no railroads, nothing except mangrove swamps and the bush. As an American, especially one from New York, this completely blows my mind.

Afer 250 NM, we turned inland and flew 50 miles or so to Borroloola YBRL, a tiny strip at a bend of the Macarthur River. The wind had picked up, and we landed with perhaps a 10 or 12 knot direct crosswind, and taxied back to the tiny apron at the approach end. There was a fuel bowser there, but it turns out the credit card system on it was malfunctioning. I had enough gas in SDN to make it to PTN, most likely, but the 172s don't have that sort of range. Luckily, the fueling chap was there working on the generator that runs the bowser, and he got on his mobile and got us authorized. I had a bit of trouble - my debit Visa cards really don't work well over here, it seems. I'm not sure if it's because I've been fraud-checked or not, because my bank does not have a frigging non-toll-free number posted on its website so I can't even call them to check. Grrmmrtrmbl. And none of the machines take Amex. Fortunately, my pax had a working Visa, so we fueled up.

After fuelling, we sat at the picnic table which was the extent of the ground facilities at YBRL, had some cheese and salad sandwiches we'd brought with us, and walked the 1/4 mile to the 'main streat' of Borroloola. Um...well, there was a petrol station. And a motel. This is somewhere that is probably 300 miles by road from any other larger settlement. The police cruised by and waved, probably concerned that there were suddenly 9 people with no visible means of support or, worse, cars wandering around town. We headed back to the airstrip and mounted up.

The second leg today was a straight flight across country. We headed almost directly west to Tindal Airbase, a RAAF base which doubles as 'Katherine Airport' (at the other end of the field) a tiny airport for the town of Katherine some 8 miles away. The flight took us over several fires - I was told by the locals that these were likely ranchers burning out areas to improve grass growth, although one of them looked to be a eucalyptus fire next to a river - billowing white smoke, rising up to 6000 feet or so. We were at 4500, but didn't pass directly through it, so I didn't divert.

The ride got bumpy at 4500 - we had a 20kt quartering tailwind, and there were just enough hills below to cause some bumps as the wind came through. I decided to avoid climbing, as it wasn't too bad - SDN had no trouble. Since it was Sunday, we were pretty sure Tindal wouldn't be active, but we checked as we got closer - sure enough, Tindal was closed down, operating as a CTAF. I had pulled ahead of the pack as they were not only slower, but had climbed to 6500 to get out of the chop, so I went in first and landed. Nobody there. There were a couple of dozen aircraft shelters under the downwind leg, but they were all locked up tight - nobody was visible anywhere on the airport. The RAAF, I was told, doesn't really operate on Sundays. I'm not sure how tongue in cheek that was (or wasn't!)

Taxied over to the civil apron to the fuel pumps. Hooray, it's a Shell Aviation pump, so the fuel carnet from SDN worked. Gassed up, then taxied over to transient parking and tied down between a pair of local 172s and a Piper of some make or other. While we were tying down, Val landed in ULE. She dropped her pax at the airside gate to the Katherine terminal, and SMSed us to tell us that getting out of the airside required an ASIC holder to hit an intercom. So we legged it over there when Hugh came in and got out with his crew while Val and Hugh went to fuel up and tie down.

We got a van taxi into Katherine, and here we are at the Beagle Motor Inn on 4th street. Walked into Katherine - there is a shopping center with a Woolworth's in it (Woolie's, in Aussie) but everything else in it (bar a chemist) was closed. We walked up the main drag in Katherine - two blocks of local stores, then BAM the bush again. The main street through is a highway - the sign says '<--DARWIN ALICE SPRINGS-->" on it at the crossroads. "Hey, isn't Alice Springs like a thousand klicks or something from here?"

"Yeah, but it's that way, mate."

Okay.

Was saddened to see that the population of Aboriginal people in Katherine seems to have the Native American disease - many of them were sleeping off liquor on the roadsides. Somehow felt guilty about this. I suppose showing up with an airplane makes me feel like the technocrat invader.

Time to figure out tomorrow's flightplan and make some notes. I've flown perhaps 1600-1800 nautical miles of Australia. It's a beautiful and empty country. More later.

Day 4 - Longreach YLRE to Karumba YKMB

Day 4 - Longreach YLRE to Karumba YKMB

Woke up for an early breakfast at 6:30 in Longreach. At 7:30 we walked back over to the airport, passing under the regal form of the City of Bunbury (the Qantas 747). Preflighting went smoothly, and we prepped the airplane for a long-ish leg of 390 nm to Normanton YNTN, where we would refuel before a quick 19 mile hop to Karumba, our destination for the day.

We were the first airplanes off YLRE. Val, in VH-ULE, took off first. Hugh, flying VH-IRJ and us in SDN took a few more minutes to run through checklists. One thing about having a glass cockpit, is that like too many other computers, you have to wait for the thing to boot before you can do anything. On a steam gauge airplane, you can run through the checklist almost as fast as you're comfortable doing so safely - on the G1000, there are at least two points where you're essentially sitting there waiting for a POST and boot before you can check readings.

We took off second, and headed out across northern Queensland. Val had given us a card to post in SDN with the aircraft reg numbers and pilot names (tickled, still, to see myself listed as pilot - I'm basically a kid, in that respect, and I hope it never changes) and the company frequency for tour chat.

We all settled in to cruise. We were making around 135 kts across the ground, and Val and Hugh were making perhaps 115 - they are flying 172s, with 4-cylinder 180HP engines and fixed-pitch props; we have 230HP in SDN, with a 6-cylinder Lycoming and a variable pitch prop. As a result, by fiddling with engine leaning, I am managing to get 135 kt cruises on 10.5 gallons/hr fuel burn, on a heavier airplane. That's about what I burn in N12732 back home, a 172 with a lower MTOW.

Northern Queensland is suffering from drought, which is quite apparent from the air. The country is dry; watering holes are low or dry, and there is very little cattle evident, as most of them have been rounded up and taken elsewhere where there is more fodder and water. Or slaughtered, I suppose, in some cases. Empty water holes surrounded by cattle tracks were abundant.

We're actually quite far into the Australian interior, at this point, and it's evident - almost no roads. In the 390 NM leg, I think we crossed a single paved highway (which had no traffic visible). Very few structures - some temporary or utility structures for ranching, and a few stations were visible, but not many.

Around halfway, we caught up to Val in ULE. I had elected to fly at 4500 while she and Hugh were at 3500, partially for that reason - I figured it would be easier to avoid unpleasant surprises by leaving a thousand foot buffer between us. We eventually did find her, though - and the G1000 stubbornly resisted my attempts to edge over to the right a bit to maintain a line of sight to ULE from my side of the plane, until I shut off the autopilot and swung wide. After passing them, I got back onto the projected course track.

I'm not using paper charts in the airplane, much. I have them ready, but I'm not performing the required minimum-every-thirty-minutes position check on the paper. To be honest, Australian charts are kind of crap, if you're used to American sectionals. They have very little information on them - although they have airfields marked, they don't have navaids, and they have no airfield information on the chart itself - no frequencies, no navaids, no runway info, etc. They may have field elevation, but that's about it. The rest of the chart - no highways, obstacle markings/clearances, anything. Railroads and some power lines are marked, but very few.

As a result, I am relying on electronics. I know this is bad, but I'm not doing so without backup. The G1000 in the plane is my primary - it has redundant systems. In addition, I have (and have verified functionality of) OzRunways on my iPad, and general GPS mapping on my iPhone. All of those work fine. The airplane has a power outlet, so charge isn't an issue. OzRunways, to be honest, gives me pretty much exactly the same functionality as the G1000 system, with a much better user interface. The only things it can't do involve connecting to other aircraft systems. But for navigation, it's excellent- better, in fact, than the U.S. app ForeFlight, which I have always considered to be an excellent example of an aviation app. It still is, don't get me wrong - but OzRunways just feels easier to use and read. It has other neat features, like firing iOS alerts when your course track indicates that you should switch to a different area frequency. Best of all, it has a thirty-day free trial, which just covers my trip here.

After a long leg, we arrived at Normanton. As I was approaching from the southeast, another aircraft announced that they were leaving Karumba for Normanton, and we would be arriving roughly simultaneously. This is a trend - most airports I've visited here, this has happened, generally with us being the only traffic for twenty minutes in either direction.

Coordinated with them (Tango Mike Quebec) and let them know that I'd be doing a full circuit, so if they were going direct, I'd be happy to stay behind them. That worked - by the time I was flying an upwind to eyeball the runway, they were landing. As we passed even with the runway, my pax said "That's a pretty big plane." I looked over - indeed, they were backtaxiing, and the shape was...not only big, but...

"That's a DC-3," I said, although uncertain of the veractiy of this due to their rarity.

"It's big, all right."

We came around and landed (my landings are improving, I'm pleased to say - they weren't ever unsafe, but they were inconsistent - as I fly SDN more, I'm learning what a proper approach looks like, and as a result the landings are getting better. Making the turnoff midway down the runway, I looked over - and it was a DC-3. A shiny one with bright markings. I pulled over next to the othe raircraft parked there, an older 182, and shut down. My pax headed off the field for a smoke, and I of course headed over to ogle the DC-3. She was marked up as 'Nostalgia Airlines' which seemed appropriate. I chatted up the gents from the other 182, who were also there to ogle her, and we took a few pictures. By that time, Val had arrived and ambled over, hoping that the Mobil truck which was by then fueling the DC-3 would have enough juice left for us!

Fueling at YNTN means calling ahead to call out the fueler. I was glad both that Val had taken care of that, and that it was a Mobil truck, which meant I could use the carnet card that came with the airplane.

After fueling up all three of us, the truck left. We all stood on the tarmac and watched as the DC-3 fired back up, taxiied out and took off, then got back in the planes for a quick 15 minute hop to Karumba. Stayed at 1500 feet for the trip.

Two things about Karumba - one, the DC-3 had gone back there, and was again waiting for us as we landed. Two, it's on the coast. The airstrip is perhaps fifty yards from the ocean. The north coast. I've made it to the north coast of Australia (albeit within a Gulf). The weather is lovely, the beach is pretty, there are pelicans and fishhawks and other birds - and a big sign warning that this beach is populated by crocodiles, and that failure to heed the warning on the sign can lead to injury and death and dismemberment, as crocodiles are dangerous.

Yep. Still in Australia.

Tomorrow we're doing a flight along the coastline for a couple of hundred miles. Finally got the GoPro mounted in the airplane today, and took some test video - I think we got the departure from Longreach, and we got most of the intervening leg using the timelapse function, but the battery died before we landed at YNTN. Hopefully I'll get some video of the coast.

One thing I did manage to do on the way here was figure out how to input arbitrary coordinate waypoints into the G1000, and then assemble them into a flight plan - so I should have our whole scenic flight programmed into SDN at this point. I'm not sure yet if I'll try to fly it myself, or if I'll hang back behind the tour pilots by cruising slowly, and let them lead. Probably the latter.

More tomorrow!

Day 3 - Dubbo YSDU to Longreach YLRE via Thargomindah YTGM

Day 3 - Dubbo YSDU to Longreach YLRE via Thargomindah YTGM

Woke up early early in Dubbo today, hoping to see clear sky. When I left my room to get breakfast at 6am, it was still dark, but there were clouds visible in the faint reflected streetlights. We were a day behind the tour - they had made it to Thargomindah, some 370 miles northwest of us, the day before. We had been stuck. Today, they were leaving Thargomindah around 8am to go to Longreach, some 275 miles further north. We were intent on catching them up.

Breakfast (a McDonald's coffee and McMuffin since they were the only thing open) and then a cab to the Dubbo airport. Felt sort of cool bypassing the terminal and coding in the GA gate. We walked over to SDN where she had patiently waited for the grounded day. Took out the stakes and tiedowns, did a preflight check, repacked our gear. The clouds were indeed overcast, but the Dubbo AWIS system claimed that they were at 3,700 feet (Dubbo is at 935 feet) - and far off to the northwest, we could see a strip of clear sky. Decided that we were going.

Fired up SDN, taxiied out to runway 31, did the runup, and took off. Turned on course at 1000 AGL, set the altitude bug for 2500 feet to remain below the clouds, and settled in. As the day broke, the flight, I realized, was AWESOME. 1500 feet AGL we could see everything! We passed over farmland, pasturage, sheep stations, and a lot (a whole lot) of bush, i.e. scrubland and red dirt.

We were heading to Bourke YBKE, around 160 nm out, which had been our goal the day before. Got there in good time - winds were much better, and we made around 132 knots over the ground. At Bourke, we were doing fine, so I continued on to Thargomindah YTGM, some 188 nm futher on. We had come out from under the clouds, so I climbed to 6500 feet in a completely clear blue sky, the sun coming up in the East over our right wing.

I was struck by how little traffic there was on the radio. I was listening to both the local CTAF frequencies and to Brisbane Center (Melbourne to start, Brisbane as we tracked north). There was only occasional traffic, most of it from commercial flights up at flight levels 190 to 350, or approaching/departing Sydney and Brisbane. US frequencies would be full of traffic, requiring clipped comms and care to avoid stepping on other transmissions, but here, nope, long long stretches of silence.

Approaching Thargomindah, I called my approach on the CTAF some 25 miles out to the southeast. Another aircraft reported he was 15 miles to the east, also approaching, a Cessna 172. Told him I'd be descending, but that I'd make sure to get behind him. When we arrived, he was on a downwind while I flew an upwind on the dead side before turning crosswind to enter the pattern. He was on the ground by the time I was on crosswind, and I came around to base, then final...

Too damn high. Got enthusiastic. Thought about getting aggressive and slipping it in, then realized "What the hell are you doing?" and just went around (CCCC - Cram it / Clean it / Cool it / Call it) and came around again at a much more sedate pace and ended up still slightly fast but on the ground easily. Taxiied back to Thargomindah, which is basically an unmanned shed with a bench outside it, and a card-operated fueling station. The plane ahead of us was just finishing, so they pushed their 172 out of the way and we taxiied up to the pumps.

Two gents were in that plane, locals. We had a chat for a few minutes - very friendly folks, as I've found all Australians to be so far, especially aviators. They were about to leave as I tried the fuelling machine - and it wouldn't work. It wouldn't take any of the 5 credit cards my pax and I had. I asked for advice, and the pilot came over saying "This thing sucks, mate, took three tries to get mine to work. Did you tell it credit?"

Turns out I'd selected the wrong option on my debit card - Checking, instead of Credit. That worked. Whew. The aircraft hire agency gave us two fuel carnet cards, but this pump only wanted credit cards. Ugh. No worry, they'll deduct the fuel purchase from my rental at the end of the trip.

They headed out, and we fuelled the plane, then had a sit on the bench to eat some Raspberry Tartlets while my pax had a smoke. I saw some soaring birds that he opined might be wedge-tailed raptors, so I went back to the plane to get an actual camera with a zoom - and of course as soon as I found it, they buggered off. Jerks.

Following, we got back in, texted the tour folks that we were leaving YTGM, and took off. In the air we tracked almost directly north for 275 NM, over a stretch of fascinatingly empty country with random dirt tracks scattered through it. We passed one (ONE) sealed road, which had a pair of lorries on it.

As we approached Longreach, I called 50 miles out. Another aircraft called 50 miles to the west, so I told him I'd make sure to come in behind him. He got me the current QNH (barometric reading) for Longreach, which he'd had someone who had just landed give him. Coming in, I saw him land, so I came around again for a crosswind entry and set up for landing. Much more credible landing this try, and I back-taxiied to the end of the strip where a bunch of GA planes were parked. A helicopter was sitting in front of the Jet-A pumps, but the Avgas pumps were free, so I snugged in. These pumps would only take a BP carnet - which we didn't have - but the station was manned. Or, really, womaned. She said "No worries, I'll enable it, you can settle up with me in the office when you're done." While I was fuelling, the tour operators (Val and Hugh) showed up and chatted up my pax. When I was done, I went inside and asked what cards they took, fearing only Visa/MC (I only have debit Visa/MC cards, so daily limits are a worry). She said "Oh, I just signed up for Amex, want to try? You'll be the first!"

Sure! Handed it over, and sure enough, it worked. "Congrats, our first Amex customer!"

Thanked her, went back out. Val and Hugh gave us the details on the local motel we were staying at, and we made arrangements to meet them later. Val had also brought a packet of paper charts - the ones I hadn't been able to buy in Sydney due to them being revised and out of stock.

We wandered off the airfield towards an enormous familiar shape - a 747-200, sitting just outside the fence next to a 707. Longreach is the home of the Qantas Founders' Museum, and the 707 was the first civil jet aircraft in Australia while the 747-200 was their first 747. Both are retired here as museum exhibits, so we wandered through the museum and I gawked at the 747. You rarely get a chance to actually walk around under those things. They are bloody huge, let me tell you. Learned something new - the tour guide was saying that Qantas' 747s had 'spare engine' mounts to allow them to transport spare engines to Australia. Apparently the 747 had enough performance that just bolting a 5th unused engine to an underwing pylon let them carry the extra with no problems!

Afterwards, we saw a DC-3 and some other fairly interesting exhibits about the history of the Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service (no, I didn't know that acronym prior to my pax explaining it to me).

To cap the day, on the walk to the motel we came across a group of grey kangaroos hanging out in a field. I felt like I'd finally made it to Australia - first marsupials! Took a picture, naturally.

So here we are. We caught the tour (whew!) and flew what will probably be one of our longest days, at 640 nm, since we were playing catch-up. I'm 600-700 miles into the Australian interior, the sky here is huge and clear blue, and groups of kangaroos on the move are incredibly hypnotic to watch.

More later!

Day 2 - Grounded YSDU

Day 2 - Grounded in Dubbo YSDU

You don't win 'em all.

We got out of Sydney a day early to try to beat the lousy weather, and we were smart enough to get past Bathurst and off the Dividing Range. We overnighted in Dubbo, and when we got up this morning, Dubbo had a cloud deck at 2800 MSL (and the field is at 935 MSL). So less than 2000 feet of clearance, when I have to remain 1000 feet over structures and 500 feet below the clouds. Our next leg was a 170 nm jaunt to a town called Bourke YBKE and then another 160 NM in a straight on line to Thargomindah YTGM.

We headed out to the airport to have a look.

The clouds were still low and very fast. It looked like unbroken cloud deck between 2000 and 3000 feet as far as we could see. Unfortunately YBKE and YTGM don't report cloud heights in their automated weather systems, but the main AirServices NAIPS forecast called for clouds at 3000 MSL at YBKE and scattered at 4500 at YTGM. We thought about it quite a bit while hanging around the tiny airport terminal, playing cards and generally shooting the shit.

I finally decided that I'm not a very high time pilot, and that I don't consider it safe for me to undertake a 300 nm trip under a 2000-2500ft AGL cloud layer, especially with winds above 15 kts (which they were). There wasn't much turbulence, and there isn't much sticking up between here and there, but...I was just too on the line about it, and I couldn't help thinking about all those bad stories which started 'Well, we really wanted to get there, so we..."

Of course, as soon as we made the call after hanging around the airport for 4 hours or so and headed back to town, it started to clear up. In the US, that might mean I'd consider going, but here I'm not allowed to fly after sundown (last light, really). That's at 6:08 pm local. That meant we might have made it to YTGM, but the forecast for YBKE showed the cloud deck dropping from 3500 to 3000 by 6pm, and I had no additional data on clouds past that point.

This does put us behind the tour. They made it to YTGM today, because they were coming from the southwest, behind the weather. Tomorrow, they're going to Longreach YLRE - and they'll have 275nm to fly. From here, we'll have 570 or so. But if the wind has died down, SDN can make an easy 135 knots, and we're planning to be wheels-up by 8am. That means if we're lucky, we'll get into YLRE only a couple hours after they do, maybe less since they have slower airplanes. Worst case - so long as we make it there sometime tomorrow - we lose out on an afternoon of touristy stuff in Longreach. Unfortunately, the Qantas museum is there, and they have a Boeing 707 and 747 done up in Qantas livery for tours, not to mention a couple of older airplanes - and I'd like to see those. Still, managing to join up with the tour will be a win.

So. This is flying VFR! The weather, it matters. While I wish it had cleared up early today or last night, I am firmly fine with my decision not to proceed.

We went back to town, got rooms, and immediately went to drown our sorrows in hot, fresh Donut King cinnamon donuts. These things are turning into a trip meme. They are so very damn good; Dunkin Donuts can suck it. I want my donut made in front of me from cake batter and dusted with cinnamon sugar. Thank whatever these don't exist in New York or my diet would be doomed. DOOMED.

We toured the Old Dubbo Gaol - the first regional prison, built as a lockup around 1847. It was in use until 1966, and has been turned into a nice little museum. It had one of Australia's few gallows, and the stories of the eight men hanged there are told. A fine way to spend an hour or so.

Tonight - quiet evening, a bit of writing, let my unhappy left foot recover a bit - it's swelling up fairly significantly during the days. I suspect my shoe. Bleah.