Somewhat ironically flying a Twin Otter to Mareeba is a
whole lot quicker than travelling commercially. The Otter plods along at 160
knots, about half what a commercial jet flies at, but it has the advantage of
going direct, or nearly so and albeit with a refuelling stop en route. The
route for my ferry flight on Tuesday was Mount Hagen to Horn Island in the
Torres Strait, and then direct Horn Island to Mareeba, just east of Cairns.
Over last weekend we were watching what Cyclone Debbie was
doing very carefully, but when it swung south of Townsville we thought the
weather for the flight would be fine, and that’s what it turned out to be for
the most part. There were some quite strong westerly winds and low cloud and
drizzle over Horn Island made an instrument approach necessary, but it was nice
before then, and very quickly nice afterwards as we continued south-easterly
down the Cape York Peninsula.
Departure time from Hagen was 07:25 and arrival in Mareeba
13:05. After sorting out some business at Mareeba, Michael Vogel (whom I was
flying with) and I headed off down the hill to Cairns about 60km away. Nicki
was short of some groceries that weren’t in stock in Hagen so we stopped at a
shopping mall where I bought as much as my overnight case would carry. In retrospect,
I should have taken a larger case!
*************
The MAF/SIL owned motel, Tree Tops, is where I stayed
overnight. It’s a very pleasant place to stay and it gave me a chance to catch
up with a few people. The Axons are there at the moment with Stephen appearing
very lively and well after his scald, which is healing well but he needs to
wear a compression suit for 18 months to minimise scarring. Brad Venter, our
Crew Training Manager and somebody I work very closely with, was on holiday
there with his family, and then I had the chance to meet some other folk who
will be coming to PNG in due course and who were attending the orientation
training that was in progress.
*************
Arriving in Australia after months in PNG there’s always a
bit of a double-take when you realise the roads don’t have potholes in them and
the infrastructure works. However, the TV news was full of the havoc the
cyclone was causing further south and how it was doing so much damage.
It was literally an overnight stop in Cairns before heading
home. All the flights and connections went well and my flight was only 30
minutes late landing in Hagen. I wondered for a while whether we’d get in as
there was a lot of cloud around. The pilot manoeuvred the aircraft very
smoothly and gently and eventually found a large enough break to let down
through, so a return trip and overnight in Moresby was avoided.
*************
A new hard drive for my computer had been delivered to
Mareeba for me to collect. The old one was showing a fault and had a warning statement
that “it needed to be fixed”. I had carefully backed everything up so over
Wednesday and Thursday evenings I cloned all the applications and data on to
the new drive. The fact that I’m typing this indicates that the operation was
successful!
I’ve just about finished a project to get digital copies of
all our Duncalfes’ Diaries dating back to the first issue. The software we used
to write them in the 1990s has long since disappeared and it is difficult to
find a way to convert the old files to a modern format. I’ve scanned all those
old ones but they don’t look so pristine as if they were an original file, but
it’s better than not having them at all.
Duncalfes’ Diaries, the complete works, from 1994 to the
present, is now available! Some people have suggested that we write our
memoires sometime, but I have a strong feeling it will never get beyond this
compilation as I have little inclination to write a book.
*************
Only ten days until we go on holiday.
The countdown has begun and we’ll soon start getting some of
our things together.
