Noosa to Latrobe Valley

Noosa - Coolangatta, 20/5/97.

As soon as we got into the air from Noosa we had to get a clearance into Maroochydore control zone. The views from Noosa to Coolangatta were great, the weather was fine. When we arrived at Coolangatta we were concerned wit a couple of nicks in the prop, which we got inspected by an engineer. There were no major hassles so we went to Surfers Paradise for a couple of days rest again.

Coolangatta - Port Macqaurie, 22/5/97.

On departure from Cooly, the tower asked us to turn further left as early as possible to allow a 737 to take off and overtake us. When we got back on track we headed for Coffs Harbour and then onto Port Macquarie. Darren forgot to cancel our SAR watch at Port Macquarie and a quick phone call rectified that problem, its surprising that it took him this long to forget it. There was a NOTAM for some test transmissions from Evans Head range, which we monitored during our flight and passed back results to the RAAF as requested.

Port Macquarie - Warnervale, 23/5/97.

Today things started to get bad in the weather stakes again. We had planned to fly from Port Macquarie to Bankstown (Sydney) but as we were transiting the Williamtown VFR lane the weather gradually got worse until we were forced to divert to Warnervale. We landed, sought some local advise and stayed put until we confirmed the weather wasnt going to be getting better. We caught a cab and train to Gosford as the weather just wasnt looking like improving.

Warnervale - Latrobe Valley, 25/5/97.

After a couple of days rest we were all just wanting to get home. The plan was to fly to Bankstown for lunch and coastal all the way home to Latrobe Valley.

We departed late from Warnervale due to some skydiving, but we didnt have to wait for too long. Today's flying went almost exactly to plan, we departed Bankstown and headed south via Victor 1 to Merimbula and almost straight to Latrobe Valley from there. We had been away for 41 days and we had flown 87.4 hours to go around Australia.