A Very Special Stop in Albany
Today I departed Busselton, and said my farewells to the west coast of Australia. As I flew around the coast at Augusta, I almost got emotional watching my compass heading change to be east. I’ve had an incredible time and am now definitely in the end half of what has been a life changing trip.
Getting into Albany was interesting, as I dodged some showers along the way, landing at about 9am. And I had some very special guests greeting me at the airport!
172s will need to have a routine service- an oil change after every 50 hours of flying, and I was approaching this number, so I had arranged to have the oil change done at Albany. Reuben from Albany Aircraft Maintenance met me at the maintenance hangar, accompanied by his two daughters. He was absolutely amazing and worked into the evening to have November ready to go the next day - thank you!!
Word had also been put out and I had some other young visitors- 3 boys, aged 6, 7 and 8! I showed the kids around the plane, they all had a turn sitting in the pilot’s seat and trying on my headset. It was wonderful to be around a group of bubbly young individuals, and I hope I was able to inspire them a little bit.
Whilst watching them pose for photos sitting in the front seat, it made me reflect a little about a very similar experience I had when I was their age. As the granddaughter of an Air Traffic Controller, I have a few early memories around aviation, and there are similar photos of younger me posing in the pilot’s seat of a light aeroplane.
Outside of aviation, I hung up my flying jacket and replaced it with my guide shirt and sash for the afternoon and joined the Albany Girl Guides with some Christmas gift wrapping. The guide group were accepting donations to wrap presents, and whilst I was in town on the 21st, 1/2 of the proceeds went towards A Start In Life. The Albany community were incredibly generous, and we were able to raise over 100 dollars- a perfect Christmas Gift. I try to remain involved in guiding, as I got into aviation through the organisation and I like to give back to it!
