Climate Change

It was one of those unusual times where it was safer, faster and more predictable to fly under the clouds in Visual conditions than to file an Instrument Flight Plan and fly through/ above the clouds.
We awoke to rain, cold and cloudy skies - the first ‘less than perfect’ weather we’ve had since leaving Sydney - so we would have to literally take a ‘rain check’ on the planned scenic flight around the Grampians enroute to Adelaide. The weather was forecast to improve sufficiently by our planned departure time so we drove back to Stawell via Ararat, refuelled and returned the car, scootered back to the airport in the icy conditions and flew at 2,500’ under the cloud base enroute to Parafield.

Our progress was impeded by a stiff headwind (35 knots= 65kmh) but this was significantly less than the 90 knots (167kmh) headwind reported by a QantasLink pilot at 12,000’. If we’d chosen to cruise at that level we would have looked down to see farm tractors and school buses on the roads below overtaking us.

We arrived at Parafield uneventfully and on opening the cabin doors we had to hold onto loose items to stop them blowing away in the cold, southwesterly gale. Aircraft refuelled and secured, friendly airport security guys driving past saw the vast quantities of luggage piling up around Loss’s feet as we prepared to walk to the exit gate.
They doubled back and called out to her ‘Here, let us give you a lift with all that luggage - we’ll take it through the vehicle access gate as you’ll never fit through the revolving turnstile gate’
Although it seemed like only standard amounts of luggage to Loss, nevertheless we gratefully accepted their offer and moments later Peter Tretola arrived in the Landcruiser with trailer and roof pod ready to swallow the luggage and drive us back to their home.
While Loss settled us in and unpacked, Peter and I went on a solid walk along ‘Second Creek’ for some exercise, returning in time to head out to Adelaide airport to pick up Dan Tretola, armed with only the vaguest instructions that ‘Dan’s flight was arriving at about 6pm’. Arriving right at 6, I spent an enjoyable hour in the Arrivals hall FaceTiming Darcy in Perth, greeting other familiar faces who had arrived on flights from Sydney - but no sign of Dan. Eventually the message was relayed that Dan had already been picked up by his brother and they were on their way for a run.

So, back to Barr-Smith street empty handed - but on the bright side, the coffee that I bought out of boredom at the airport while I was waiting for Dan was actually quite good!Read more