THU 2ND JULY - CAIRNS

Big Bob arrived in Cairns at about lunch time from the USA while Little Bob arrived from PNG in the evening.

FRI 3RD JULY - MAREEBA (YMBE) - To - NORMANTON (YNTN)

Todays flight was 244 Nautical Miles and was 2 hours and 5 minutes flight time. There were few clouds in the sky and we had a slight tail wind. After departing Mareeba and crossing the Great Diving Range no houses were seen for the next one and a half hours. We just kept crossing dry terrain until we saw a house about 10 miles out of Normanton.

Upon arrival in Normanton we were met by another Bob, Bob Stevens, and he gave us his ute to drive around in. The Ute came with a full tank of gas and a full esky of cold beer in the back. This new extra Bob, who became known as Ozzie Bob, knew Little Bob from PNG as well as Big Bob from his flying around the world in previous years. Ozzie Bob is a "Grey Nomad" camping on a river just outside of Normanton.

Normanton is the administrative centre of the Shire of Carpentaria. Among Normanton's most notable features is a statue of an 8.64 m long saltwater crocodile named Krys, the largest ever taken. It was shot by Krystina Pawlowska in July 1957 in the Norman River. Barramundi and salmon may also be caught in the river. The "Big Barramundi", which is 6 m long is also located in the town.

No visit to Normation would be complete without going to the Purple Pub.

SAT 4TH JULY - NORMANTON - To - KARUMBA

Big Bob decided to play "silly buggers" and give the big croc a taste of himself.

This turned out to be a non flying day and instead of flying to Karumba we decided to drive in the Ford Ranger that Ozzie Bob had given us for the duration of our stay in the area. Karumba was only 71 km from Normanton and we stayed at the "End of the Road Motel" at the Karumba point rather than in Kurumba itself. The Ford Ranger gave us the capability to check out the Animal Bar in Karumba.

Karumba town is sited at the mouth of the Norman River, and enjoys the distinction of being the only town along the southern Gulf of Carpentaria that is within sight of the Gulf itself (the Gulf's extensive tidal flats prohibits settlement elsewhere along its shore). As such, the town's economy revolves largely around fishing. The Karumba port also services the Century Zinc Mine as well as fishing.

The rare Morning Glory cloud rolls through Karumba in the early hours of some mornings in September and October.

In the late 1930s the town was a refueling and maintenance stop for the flying boats of the Qantas Empire Airways.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers song Animal Bar from their 2006 album Stadium Arcadium is about Karumba. It is named after the bar called the Animal Bar which we went to in downtown Karumba.

SUN 5TH JULY - KARUMBA - To - NORMANTON (YNTN) - To - INVERLEIGH - To - BURKETOWN (YBKT)

Ozzie Bob and his wife Lania dropped us off at Normanton Airport and we said goodby to them but made arrangements to meet them again in Gregory Downs tomorrow. Ozzie Bob and Lania were going to drive to Gregory Downs. We could not resist another photo of the four of us with the Big Croc at Normanton.

Todays flight was about 100 Nautical Miles and we did two sectors for a total of about 1 hour and 5 minutes. The first sector was to a cattle station called Inverleigh and the second one was to our final destination for the day, Burketown. With the main road closed to Inverleigh we were not able to make contact with any one there so after a short stop we continued onto Burketown.

Burketown is an isolated town located on the Gulf of Carpentaria in far north-western Queensland. It is located on the Albert River and Savannah Way in the area known as the Gulf Savannah.The town is the administrative centre of the vast Burke Shire Council. Burketown has a population of about 173.

Burketown was named in honour of explorer Robert O'Hara Burke, who died shortly after making the first successful south-north crossing of the continent in 1860-1. The first European settlers arrived in the local region not long after Burke and partner William John Wills' expedition. By the mid-1860s, several cattle stations - including Gregory Downs, Floraville, and Donors Hill - had been founded inland from the present site of Burketown. Burketown was formally established in 1865 by Robert Towns, chiefly to serve as a port and supply centre for his extensive properties in the Gulf country. Towns chartered a small vessel the Jacmel Packet and on 12 June 1865 it arrived off the mouth of the Albert River. The goods were eventually landed on the present site of Burketown. Towns, a prominent Sydney pastoralist and financier, also established Townsville in the same year.

By September 1865 the population was about 40 and by October a store and a hotel were under construction, the balance of buildings were humpies. Rations and grog were plentiful but already one evil was noted, the prices for goods were so high that some intended settlers could not stay. The town grew, however currency, both notes and coins, were so short in early Burketown that the business people issued their own currency, dubbed "shinplaster" or "calabashers". These were in the form of IOU's hand printed on tissue paper so that they had as short a life as possible. In this period everyone in Burketown carried a hand gun.

Burketown Post Office opened on 1 July 1866, closed in 1871 and reopened in 1883.

Burketown is known as the Barramundi capital of Australia and holds an annual Barramundi Fishing Competition during Easter each year.

MON 6TH JULY - BURKETOWN (YBKT) - To - GREGORY DOWNS (YGDS)

Todays flight was about 60 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 40 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

Ozzie Bob abd Lania cane out to meet us at Gregory Downs airport towing their caravan and we travelled back to the hotel in their caravan as Ozzie Bob only had a single cab ute that he towed his caravan with.

Gregory Downs is an extremely small community, however, a townsite has been surveyed for the future. It is at the intersection of all roads leading to the Lawn Hill National Park, 95 kilometres to the west and services most of the surrounding grazing community. The Gregory Downs Hotel is an original coachhouse from the last century.

The surrounding environment includes flat, savannah grasslands. The perennial Gregory River, just west of the townsite, is the site of the annual Gregory River canoe races, and is considered to be one of the best courses in Australia. Its banks boast thick, lush vegitation - the remnants of an ancient rainforest which once covered the entire Gulf Savannah Region. Vegetation includes the unique and spectacular livistonia palm.

TUE 7TH JULY - GREGORY DOWNS (YGDS) - To - CAMOOWEAL (YCMW) - To - MOUNT ISA (YBMA)

Todays flight was about 200 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 2 hours. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky and we also tracked over the Century Mine.

We walked into down town Camooweal and had breakfast at the Post Office Hotel which the hotel promotes as the first and last hotel in Queensland. Camooweal is located on the Barkly Highway quite close to the Queensland/Northern Teritory border.

It is said that a lone prospector, John Campbell Miles, stumbled upon one of the world's richest deposits of copper, silver and zinc during his 1923 expedition into the Northern Territory, he was taken to the deposits by a young aboriginal man by the name of Kabalulumana (for whom an Indigenous person's hostel in Mount Isa is named). When Miles inspected the yellow-black rocks in a nearby outcrop, they reminded him of the ore found in the Broken Hill mine that he had once worked at. Upon inspection these rocks were weighty and heavily mineralised. A sample sent away to the assayer in Cloncurry confirmed their value. Miles and four farmers staked out the first claims in the area. Taken with friend's stories of the Mount Ida gold mines in Western Australia, Miles decided upon Mount Isa as the name for his new claim.

Mount Isa Post Office opened on 1 August 1924.

WED 8TH JULY - MOUNT ISA (YBMA) - To - BOULIA (YBOU) - To - BEDOURIE (YBIE)

Todays flight was about 250 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 2 hours. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky and we stopped at Boulia for about 3 hours.

The town hosts the Boulia Desert Sands Camel Races, one of the more important events on the Australian camel racing circuit. Extensive grazing of beef cattle is the predominant industry.

The Boulia is best known for sightings of the Min Min lights, mysterious shimmering lights that appear at night. The lights are said to be caused by atmospheric refraction that occurs when cold air is trapped below warmer air, a phenomenon known as Fata Morgana.

It was also here that Big Bob decided that he wanted to go out beyond the red stump to see what might lay there.

Bedourie is the administrative centre of the Diamantina Shire, which also comprises the towns of Birdsville and Betoota. The Shire Council moved from Birdsville to Bedourie in 1953. No one lives in the town of Betoota but there is a horse race there every year.

Bedourie has an aquatic centre, library, museum, outback golf course, visitor information centre and a hotel built from adobe bricks in the 1880s and a racetrack. When the Georgina River experiences severe floods the town can be cut off by road for months at a time.

THU 9TH JULY - BEDOURIE (YBIE) - To - BIRDSVILLE (YBDV) - WILLIAM CREEK (YWMC)

Todays flight was two sectors and was about 360 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours and 20 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky and we stopped at Birdsville for fuel and a cup of morning coffee.

The photo ar the right shows the sand ridges of the Simpson Desert as they look from the air not too far from Birdsville.

Many of Australia's pioneering European explorers travelled through the Birdsville district well before the town was gazetted. Monuments to acknowledge the feats of Captain Charles Sturt, Burke & Wills, Cecil Madigan and others are located throughout the town.

After Bridsville we tracked along the Warberton River to the southern part of Lake Eyre. We were hoping to land on Lake Eyre and camp the night there but the Lake had quite a bit of water in it, so we gave that plan a miss. We continued onto William Creek and stayed in the William Creek Pub for the night.

FRI 10TH JULY - WILLIAM CREEK (YWMC) - To - OODNADATTA (YOOD) - To - DALHOUSIE SPRINGS (YDLH) - To - MOUNT DARE (YMTX) - To - OLD ANDADO (YAOD)

Todays flight was four sectors and was about 340 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

At Oodnatta we stopped for fuel and visited the Pink Roadhouse for a cup of coffee. It was another stop on the "Oodnatta Track" that was regularly visited by the "Grey Nomads".

We were not welcome at Dalhousie Springs, the "catetaker" said that it was a National Park and we needed a permit to land there. We could tell by her attitude that we should leave so we departed not long after landing.

At Mount Dare which was also in the same National Park, despite the fact that we landed on the wrong airstrip, we were made most welcome by the manager and his wife and they spent about an hour chatting to us over lunch and some more coffee.

We then went out into the Simpson desert to a place call old Andado, we landed between a couple of sand hills set up a rough camp and spent he night there. We slept in our sleeping bags under the stars. It was a wonderful dark night, the sky was full of stars with the Milky Way clearly visible. He watch Venus and Jupiter set, saw many "shooting Stars" and the moon shadows atarted to appear at about 3.00 am.

The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth largest Australian desert, with an area of 176,500 km2 and is the world's largest sand dune desert.

The Simpson Desert is an erg which contains the world's longest parallel sand dunes.These north-south oriented dunes are static, held in position by vegetation. They vary in height from 3 metres in the west to around 30 metres on the eastern side. The largest dune, Nappanerica, is 40 metres in height.

SAT 11TH JULY - OLD ANDADO (YOAD) - To ROSS RIVER RESORT (YROV) - To - DELMORE DOWNS HOMESTEAD(YDLD) - To - TENNANT CREEK (YTNK) - DALY WATERS (YDLW)

Todays flight was another four sectors and was about 620 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 5 hours and 25 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

Little Bob's son Michael had a school and university peer by the name of Baden Holt. Baden's family had owned Delmore for several generations so it was a must that we had to call into Delmore Downs to see where Baden grew up. We landed at the airstrip at the homestead and Baden's Gyro Copter was parked in the front yard. Only Baden's father, Don, was there and he cooked lunch for us before we headed off to Daly Waters where we spent the night at the Daly Waters Pub.

The name Daly Waters was given to a series of natural springs by John McDouall Stuart during his third attempt to cross Australia from south to north, in 1861-2.Stuart named the springs after the new Governor of South Australia, Sir Dominick Daly.

Daly Waters Airfield was a centre for the London to Sydney air race of 1926, a refuelling stop for early Qantas flights to Singapore, a World War II Airforce base and more recently an operational base for joint military manoeuvres. Although the aerodrome was closed to commercial traffic in 1965 the original Qantas hangar still stands, housing exhibits of photographs and equipment from the area's aviation past.

SUN 12TH JULY - DALY WATERS (YDLW)- To - BATCHELOR (YBCR) - DARWIN (YPDN)

Todays flight was about 260 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 2 hours and 20 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky. We spent about an hour in Batchelor talking to one of the charter pilots there. He was most helpful in telling us how to get into Darwin VFR.

Batchelor is an entry point for travellers to Litchfield National Park which attracts approximately 280,000 visitors annually. Seven rangers of the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service and the Litchfield National Park office are based in the town. The town is situated on the only all weather access road to the park. There are a number of attractions in the town area for visitors travelling between Darwin and Litchfield Park including a museum, cultural centre, butterfly sanctuary and miniature replica of Karlstein Castle.

We stayed in he Daly Waters Pub, it is only about 4 km off the Stuart Hwy. There are a lot of things to look at in the pub like collections of rego plates, bras, thongs, hats, caps and cash notes from all around the world just to name a few.

MON 13TH JULY - DARWIN (YPDN)

We decided to stay two nights in Darwin so this is going to be a no fly day.

There was a boat race on in Darwin for boats that were made out of empty beer cans. It was off Mindi Beach where people watch the sunset and there are some large markets on two days each week.

We visited the Aircraft Mueum at Darwin Airport where there was quite an array of historical aircraft as well as a B52 bomber.

Around 10,000 Australian and other Allied troops arrived in Darwin at the outset of World War II, in order to defend Australia's northern coastline. On 19 February 1942 at 09.57 hrs, 188 Japanese warplanes attacked Darwin in two waves. It was the same fleet that had bombed Pearl Harbor, though a considerably larger number of bombs were dropped on Darwin than on Pearl Harbor.

The attack killed at least 243 people and caused immense damage to the town. These were by far the most serious attacks on Australia in time of war, in terms of fatalities and damage. They were the first of many raids on Darwin.

TUE 14TH JULY - DARWIN (YPDN) - To - BULLO RIVER STATION (YBVY) - To - KUNUNURRA (YPKU) - To EL QURSTRO (YaaEQO)

Todays flight was about 260 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours and 5 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

There was a joint exercise goning on in the Darwin area with US, Japanese, New Zealaind and Australian forces and this meant that we had to divert around some restricted air spaces on our way to Bullo River Station.

We have some coffee at Bullo, stayed about and hour and then kept going to Kunanurra for fuel.

Bullo River is a Top End cattle station, it is half a million acres of grassy plains with Brahman-cross cattle and many more wallabies, brown rivers where crocodiles lurk on the muddy banks, rugged hills inscribed with Aboriginal rock art, gushing streams and crystal clear swimming holes, termite mounds, boab trees, stock horses and wild buffalo.

The photo at the right are some of the boab trees located adjacent to the homestead.

We continued onto El Questo for the night. The only accommodation available at El Questro was in a tent and it was another cold night for us.

WED 15TH JULY - EL QUESTRO (YEQO) - To - KALUMBUU (YKAL)- To - MITCHELL PLATEAU (YMIP) - DRYSDALE RIVER STATION (YDRD)

Todays flight was about 330 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 2 hours and 50 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

From El Questro we tracked north alonge the eastern Kimberly coastline past Wyndham, Berkley River Lodge, King George Falls and Faraway Bay Lodge before picking up a heading for Kalumbru. At Kalambru we just stretched our legs for about 15 minutes and then we took off again and flew over the Mitchel Falls and then landed at Mitchell Plateau. At Mitchell Plateau we boiled ourselves a billy, had some coffee and debated whether we we should stay there for the night or push on. We made a telephone call to Drysdale River Station on our satellite phone and and decided to go there for the night as we thought that it might be warmer than staying on the Mitchell Plateau.

The photo at the right shows the Kimberly coast as we saw it.

The Kimberley consists of the ancient, steep-sided mountain ranges of northwestern Australia cut through with sandstone and limestone gorges and steep ridges from which the extreme monsoonal climate has removed much of the soil. The southern end of the Kimberley beyond the Dampier Peninsula is flatter with dry tropical grassland and is used for cattle ranching. In parts of the Kimberley such as the valleys of the Ord and Fitzroy Rivers in the south the soils are relatively usable cracking clays. Although none of the mountains reach even 1,000 metres (3,281 ft), there is so much steep land as to make much of the region very difficult to traverse, especially during the wet season when even sealed roads are often flooded. The coast is typically steep cliffs in the north but flatter in the south.

THU 16TH JULY - DRYSDALE RIVER STATION (YDRD) - To - DERBY (YDBY) - To - HORIZONTAL WATER FALLS (HZWF)- To - CAPE LEVEQUE (YCLQ) - To - BROOME (YBRM)

Todays flight was about 360 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours and 10 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

The Horizontal Falls or Horizontal Waterfalls is the name given to a natural phenomenon on the coast of the Kimberley region in Western Australia and there is a photo of them to the right.

The Horizontal Falls are a fast-moving tidal flow through two narrow, closely aligned gorges of the McLarty Range, located in Talbot Bay. The direction of the flow reverses with each change of tide. As tides in the Kimberley can reach 10 meters, a peak tide gives rise to a significant difference in the sea level on either side of each gorge.

The northern, most seaward gorge is 20 meters wide and the southern, more inland gorge is 12 meters. Above each of the gorges are natural reservoirs between 6–8 km long which fill and empty with seawater through the gorge openings. The inner gorge is also partly fed by fresh water from Poulton Creek.

The famous beach in Broome, Cable Beach is named in honour of the Java-to-Australia undersea telegraph cable which reaches shore here, Cable Beach is situated 7 km from town. The beach itself is 22.5 km long with white sand, washed by tides that can reach over 9 meters. The beach is almost perfectly flat. Four wheel drive vehicles may be driven onto the beach from the car park. This allows people to explore the beach at low tide to a much greater extent than would be possible on foot. Sunset camel rides operate daily along the beach.

FRI 17TH JULY - BROOME (YBRM) - To - SANDFIRE ROADHOUSE (YSFI) - To - WALLAL DOWNS STATION (YWAL) - To - YARRIE STATION (YA2188)

The flatness of Cable Beach is amplified at sunset as the photo on the right depicts.

Todays flight was about 250 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 2 hours and 10 minutes. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky.

Our first stop after leaving Broome was the Sandfire Roadhouse on the Great Northern Highway between Port Hedland and Broome. It is on the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert, and east of Wallal Downs and Mandora Station. It is inland, and located 20 km from the coast in the region of the Mandora Marsh and the Eighty Mile Beach.

From the Sandfire Roadhouse it was only a short flight the Wallal Downs Station where we stopped for lunch and a cup of coffee. We spent quite some time talking with the new owner of about two years and he told us of his future plans for the property.

Wallal Downs is the most southerly cattle station in the Kimberley. With a size of approximately 500,000 acres and stretches from the coastal flats into the Great Sandy Desert. Cattle reared in the area are mostly sent to market in Port Hedland or Broome and are exported live.

Andrew Grace from Kimberley Aviation suggested that we continue onto Yarrie Station and stay the night there. This we did. The people at Yarrie Station were most helpful is suggesting places for us to go next.

SAT 18TH JULY YARRIE STATION (YA2188)- To - NEWMAN (YNWN) - To - MOUNT AUGUSTUS STATION (YMAU)

Todays flight was about 350 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours. It was another fine day with no clouds in the sky as well as a nice tail - wind.

Termite mounds were in their 1,000's for much of our trip and they came in all shapes and sizes.

Mount Augustus is composed of sandstone and conglomerate, a formation known to geologists as the Mount Augustus Sandstone, which overlies older granite near its northern end. The Mount Augustus Sandstone was deposited by ancient river systems and is somewhat younger than the 1.64 billion year old granite beneath. The originally horizontal sediments have been folded into an asymmetric anticline by later tectonic movements.

Francis Thomas Gregory reached the summit on 3 June 1858 during his 107-day journey through the Gascoyne region, becoming the first recorded European to climb the mountain.

Some weeks later he named the peak after his brother, Sir Augustus Charles Gregory (1819–1905). At the time Augustus was on his last expedition, an unsuccessful foray into western Queensland in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of Ludwig Leichhardt.

The pastoral lease, Mount Augustus Station, which once included Mount Augustus was settled in 1887. A portion of this lease along with a portion of the Cobra Station lease, totalling 9,168 hectares (22,655 acres) were voluntarily released in 1989 to create the National Park

SUN 19TH JULY MOUNT AUGUSTUS STATION (YMAU) - To - MOUNT NARRYER STATION (YA1320)- To - WOOLEEN STATION (YWEE) - To - GABYON STATION (????)- To - NORTHAM (YNTM)

Todays flight was about 450 Nautical Miles with a flight time of about 3 hours and 50 minutes. It was another fine day for the start of the flight however the last 100 miles into Northam was done under complete cloud cover with the occasional light shower. These were our first clouds sine we left Mareeba over two weeks ago.

Claude, always the perfect host, was at Northam Airport to meet us and to allocate a spot in his hanger where we could park the aircraft until it was time to return to Northam and fly the aircraft back to PNG.

The area around Northam was first explored in 1830 by a party of colonists led by Ensign Robert Dale, and subsequently founded in 1833. It was named by Governor Stirling, probably after a village of the same name in Devon, England. Almost immediately it became a point of departure for explorers and settlers who were interested in the lands which lay to the east.

This initial importance declined with the growing importance of the other nearby towns of York and Beverley, but the arrival of the railway made Northam the major departure point for fossickers and miners who headed east towards the goldfields.

This was the end of our trip, we had flown for almost 40 hours, covered 10,000 km and landed at 37 airstrips. We both headed back to Cairns and from here Big Bob went back to the USA while Little Bob went back to PNG. Claude could not be persuaded to leave Northam for he claimed that Northam was the "centre of the world" and that everything revolved around Northam.

Who were they????

1) The Three Wise men!!!

or

2) The three wise monkeys who, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil!!!

or

3) The Three Stooges!!!