Diary of an aviation nut: Crossing the Top End

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay on Groote Eylandt. It's very clean and tidy although I understand the Aboriginal communities on the island may not be at the same standard as we experienced. The Groote Eylandt Lodge was very comfortable albeit a bit expensive.

Groote Eylandt to Jabiru

By 10:30 we were refueled and away. I chose to track further east to have a look at the Aboriginal settlement Umbakumba before setting heading for our first stop at Jabiru. As I expected, the settlement wasn't much more than a collection of ramshackle houses on the shores of a nice bay where fishing was obviously a major pastime.

I overflew the major settlement of Alyangula where we stayed as I left Groote Eylandt behind.

Arnhem Land is not an area I've flown over before but, because it was hot and bumpy I climbed into smooth air which put me on top of the cloud. Cloud obscured much of the view until I was about 100nm (185km) from Jabiru. When the cloud broke up and the land beneath came into view I could see a mostly wide, open country with long grass and scattered trees. There was big sandstone plateaus and gorges carved into the land. Most of the land is gently rolling with broad river floodplains in parts.

We popped into Jabiru for fuel and it was as hot as hell. After refueling wee retreated into the small terminal where we had a nutritious bag of chips and a cold drink for lunch.

Jabiru to Darwin

After about 45mins on the ground we started our 150nm (278km) trip to Darwin. This included a brief side-trip up the Mikinj Valley where there was some impressive escarpments and river valleys.

The first half this leg was over similar wide open country as that I flew over on my way to Jabiru. However, the second half was more interesting as we kissed the Van Diemen Gulf coastline.

Things then got busy as I readied myself to land at Darwin airport. There's several prescribed routes into Darwin for light aircraft to follow but we still had to talk to a clearance delivery and then an approach controller plus orbit waiting for other traffic to disperse before being handed off to the control tower to be cleared to land.

The Pitch Black military air exercise starts in Darwin in a few weeks. This is the Australian Air Force's premier international biennial warfare exercise and there's lots of military aircraft based at the airfield. I didn't see them, but when Andrew and John landed behind me, two F-35 fighters were waiting to line up on the runway behind them. Having two of those aircraft idling on the runway would've cost the Australian taxpayer a few bob!

As we were unpacking and tying down our aircraft there must have been about a dozen F-35's taking off on the runway only a few hundred metres away from where we were parked. The noise was horrendous.

A day off in Darwin

The primary reason we chose to visit Darwin was to visit Andy who was an instructor at the Kapiti Aero Club and who Andrew, John and I have all flown with. Andy's a great guy and is now a First Officer with Air North and it was great to catch-up with him and his wife Suzy on each of the two nights we stayed in Darwin. He was good enough to lend us his car to get around Darwin in.

The motel we were staying in was clean and tidy but we had suspicions about some of the residents and their activities. Returning to our room we found people on the footpath and were asked to stay outside the building as there was "maintenance" being performed. I was busting to go to the loo, so I sneaked down the driveway and around the back to
our ground floor room. In the rear carpark was a Police vehicle and ambulance. I went to the toilet and then stuck my head out of the door to see a stretcher with a person covered by a sheet. Lovely!

On our day off we busied ourselves getting oil for the aircraft and then went to the Darwin Aviation Museum where we geeked-out on a large display of military aircraft including a massive B-52 bomber.