WA and HSC
At roughly 7:15 am Perth time, I crossed over the NT-WA border, officially entering my next state! Having never been to WA before, I was super excited to make this next part of my journey around the country.
The flying that I did on the 14th of December was exhausting, with no other way to say it! I was up at 3am WA time (4:30 in the NT), to get out to the airport for an early morning departure which would see me avoid both storms building up across the planned route and strong winds which are typical to the coast in an afternoon. With NCO preflighted and up, it was a wonderfully smooth morning, and I made it across the border and landed to refuel in Kununurra at 7:30 local time- with almost 3 hours of flying already under my belt!
Next stop was Derby, and after calling ahead to confirm fuel availability, I saddled up (or started the engine) for another 3 hours. NCO has a fuel endurance of about 4 hours, however I make a point of not planning more than 3 hours without refuelling so I have an extra buffer. This is especially important in remote parts- as some of my flightradar24 fans might know, I was out of the coverage of the website for a large part of the flight. Derby was HOT, with it not even being midday and the temperature already above 40 degrees! I did a short field takeoff coming out of Derby on the red gravel runway- despite the hot day, NCO climbed up exceptionally well and we were off the ground before the first taxiway. Lots of fun.
The final leg of the flight was an extra hour to Broome, which passed quite quickly considering all the flying I’d already done. The procedures, using bearings, were different to the class D procedures I have been used to before, but with some prior study there was no issue.
After landing and parking, I usually go through a list of actions to tie down the plane. However, my first move today was to pull out my laptop- that’s because the NSW HSC results came out today! They’re released in the morning, so the email had been sitting in my inbox since when I woke up, however I’d made the decision to avoid looking at anything until I had finished my flying for the day, because regardless of if I was happy, disappointed or somewhere in between , I didn’t want my results to be in the front of my mind when I was operating an aircraft!
I’m very happy to be back on target and re-intercept my planned circumnavigation’s track, it was wonderful to see the west coast! A huge shout out must be made the the wonderful Chloe Brownscombe, a fellow AWPA member who let me stay in her guest room overnight. I had a wonderful experience of Broome- we drove down to the beach to watch the sun set and had fish and chips for dinner. Many thanks also for letting me use your printer in the morning too!
