Diary of an aviation nut: Cruisin’ the Gulf of Carpentaria

Our original plan was to fly around the Gulf of Carpentaria to Cooinda which I had visited many years ago. At Cooinda, you can do the Yellow Waters cruise which is lovely and includes seeing some pretty ferocious crocodiles in their natural habitat. It’s school holidays here and we weren’t able to get accommodation so that idea was sadly scrubbed.

Next idea - let’s go right around the Gulf of Carpentaria at the top of Australia to the strangely sounding Groote Eylandt. I haven’t been there before.

With accommodation planned and a call to the friendly ARO at Groote Eylandt airport to check what, if any, Aboriginal land access permits we needed to land on the island, we were off.

In the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Australian continent sort of merges into the sea. The land barely rises above sea level and, apart from the mangroves, the coastline is pretty indistinct. Across the land, green fringed waterways make their way to the sea and, from the air, look like capillaries from some biological text book. The few settlements in the Gulf are dozens of miles inland and so the coastline is remote and isolated. With appropriate attention to the Civil Aviation Regulations of course, it’s fun to drop down low and zoom up and down the waterways. Birds are a hazard but, on this occasion, I saw few.

Andrew and I positioned the aircraft so he could get some video of me flying along the coastline. When that was done, I carried on “zooming” and having a great time.

The Gulf is about 350nm (650km) wide and so it was necessary to get some fuel. We called into Borroloola for that and wandered down the road to the local service station for an icecream and cold drink. The temperature was about 29 degrees.

Borroloola is a bit of a rough looking Aboriginal community and, although the aircraft are in a secure area behind a locked gate, I didn’t want to leave them for long. We scurried back to the airport with melting icecreams in hand and briefed our flight onto Groote Eylandt.

Groote Eylandt was named by the Dutch (“eylandt” is Dutch for “island”). It’s aboriginal land and there are strict access permissions and large fines if you take alcohol onto the island without permission. On the west coast there are massive opencast manganese mines which are impressive as you fly over. There’s also regular mine blasting and NOTAMS advising of that which, as a pilot, you need to be aware of as the mines aren’t far away from the airport.

Allan, the Groote Eylandt Airport Manager, was a very friendly chap and offered to drive us the 20km to the Lodge we had booked in the main settlement of Alyangula. On the way he told us lots about the mines, the traditional Aboriginal owners and life on the island with his young family.

The Groote Eylandt Lodge was a lovely resort with a high standard of small but comfortable rooms. It was very pleasant sitting on the deck with a drink in hand watching the sun go down.