Good people and good airmenship

[Guest watto]

My wife and I headed off to Temora in the Jab 230, from Rodds Bay near Gladstone on Thursday morning about 0630hrs and headed for Chinchilla, then onto Moree and Naromine before landing in Temora at about 1430hrs that same day, pretty good time and a fairly lazy schedule with plenty of comfort stops for the Co-pilot.

 

Temora was great and we met up with the rest of the group from Rodds Bay and had a great time, we had planned on leaving on the Monday but Saturday night the wind got up and almost blew the tent away so sensing the co-pilots camping tolerance was near its limits self preservation instinct kicked in and I suggested that we head to Mittagong to visit my mother a day early and the response was YES, do you want to think about it I asked, NO was the response! So we packed up and headed over to Mittagong.

 

Mum was pleased to see us and I caught up with a few people I had not seen for a while including Eddie who has a Jab SP and an airborne trike and it did not take much prompting for me to go for a lap in the trike which was awesome.

 

Tuesday the cloud hung around Mittagong until mid morning delaying our departure to Brisbane until 1030am and we finally headed off and had a great run until we approached Mudgee which we had planned on making a comfort stop but overheard an aircraft on instrument approach before we got there and when we did we found Mudgee to be shrouded in cloud! So we decided to head for our next stop at Inverell.

 

After skirting around Mudgee up the Hunter we decided to pick up our original track and as we passed the Hamlet of Merriwa we found that the range was hemmed in with cloud and in fact a rain front was heading our way, I turned to the co-pilot and said “well we can either head back or I saw a private strip a couple of miles back and we could land there and let it pass”, the decision was made to land.

 

After landing I made my way to the farm house and introduced myself to the lady of the house (Kay) who was very surprised to see me as she thought the noise was a vehicle traveling along the road, the rain had started to fall and to my surprise Kay said take the ute and go and get your wife and bring here over! And when I turned back up at the Jab with a vehicle I think my wife had thought I had stolen it by the look on here face, she was how ever happy to hear otherwise.

 

Well the rain did pass (24 HOURS LATER) and in the meanwhile the property owners Kay and Ian and grandchildren Nick and Charlie made us feel very welcome and gave us a warm comfy bed and a lovely home cooked meal, COUNTRY HOSPITALITY!!!!!!! And as it turned out Ian had a plane in the shed and is an avid member of the Scone Aero club and we had a good chat about planes and flying that evening and Ian gave me some valuable info about the local conditions for our departure.

 

Wednesday morning about 1030am the rain had stopped and the cloud started to lift so the decision was made to head off again so after thank you’s and goodbyes we headed for Quirindi but again the range was clouded over so as it was clear to the west we tracked to Naromine and refueled before heading on to Moree but again there was a shower over Moree when we arrived but clear to the west so we went onto Goondawindi and refueled again and stretched our legs and then made the final hop back to Rodds bay, arriving 15 or 20 minutes before last light (a bit tighter than I usually plan but given the circumstances well timed).

 

We had such a great time on our adventure and used our good judgment and discretion to avoid a sticky situation which could have meant going to any of our alternates but we chose the closest which we had not planned for but as it was available my decision to utilise it was a wise one, Ian said he though I had done the right thing and that we where welcome to return again if we could not get around the weather after our departure and the knowledge of the certainly helps to confirm that there is no need to venture beyond the boundaries imposed by changing weather condition, it is better to find a spot and put it on the ground and wait for conditions to improve.

 

Although our weather report was that conditions were clearing in the north west we found out that conditions and forecasts are not always willing to stick to a script!! :yin_yan:

 

 

[Tomo]

Good work Watto, sorry I didn't catch up with you at Temora, or did I? ;)

 

Thanks for the report, I'm working on mine.......

 

 

[Guest watto]

No mate, I saw Ian at the stand and put a smiley face up but did not see any familiar faces from here unfortunately.

 

 

[Guest watto]

Temora sunset

 

Saturday evening sunset was spectacular at Temora.