Diary of an aviation nut: South down the west coast of the York Penisula

Thursday Island

Today we completed our coastal circumnavigation of the York Peninsula having flown north along the east coast of the peninsula to Cape York and south down the west coast to Karumba.

We’d landed on Horn Island off the coast of the York Peninsula and so were subject to strict bio-security requirements before flying back to mainland Australia. There’s creepy crawlies in the islands of the Torres Strait they don’t want on the mainland so you have to provide prior notice of your arrival on Horn Island and present yourself to an Australian Biosecurity Officer before departure. The Officer provides you with a pre-departure spray which must be used when the aircraft is packed and ready for departure and a top-of-descent spray which must be used on descent to your first point of landing on the mainland. It’s not a difficult process to follow.

Bugs be gone

Horn Island airport is busy and, after being refuelled from a truck (a novelty for us Kiwi pilots), we had to taxi after an Alliance Fokker F28 jet, behind a stationary QantasLink Q300 and we led a Cessna Caravan onto the runway.

Taking off from Horn Island we did a wide circuit of Thursday Island where we’d stayed. It was good to see the island from the air and its infrastructure. All power on the island is supplied by diesel generators and the power station could be clearly seen on the north side of the island. Nothing is grown on the island. Everything is delivered by barge.

Leaving Thursday Island we set a southerly heading for our long multi-day trip back to Brisbane. Our first stop was Weipa for fuel. We only took what fuel we needed to reach Weipa at Horn Island as it was likely to be expensive. It must be real expensive as the Horn Island refueller either didn’t know the price or was too scared to tell us.

North of Weipa are many bauxite mines all serviced by their own airstrips and small ports. We saw tugs towing barges laden with minerals out to sea to who knows where. New Zealand’s Bluff Aluminum smelter? The refueller at Weipa told us the town was owned by Rio Tinto.

Before we began refuelling from the truck at Weipa, I dipped the aircraft’s fuel tanks and was concerned to feel the fuel bladder in the right-hand tank had lifted and felt squishy. The 150 litres stored in each wing of a Cessna 182 is held in a bladder and I know they can be fragile. I expected the worst and could think of better places to be stuck with a disabled aircraft than Weipa! I called the engineer who looks after VH-DXJ and he told me not to worry. He said that once the tank was full, the bladder would flatten out. Phew!

It was a long leg from Weipa to Karumba. There were periods of silence (I saw Robert nodding off beside me) but also many hilarious conversations about topics that should not be published. We saw boats on very remote rivers and conjured up fanciful stories of drugs being landed from far off places and other nefarious activities.

We landed just on 5pm at Karumba. With no cellphone coverage at this remote town, we had to leave our bags in the plane and walk 1 – 2km into town to find our accommodation and ask them to take us back to the airport to collect our bags.

Then it was into the bar.

Leg Summary
Horn Island (YHID) - Weipa (YBWP)
Planned Distance: 127nm (235km)
Time: 1.3hrs
Alt: 4,500ft

Weipa (YBWP) - Karumba (YKMB)
Distance: 292nm (541km)
Time: 2.6hrs
Alt: 4,500ft