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Australian Adventure

We've had some time over the Christmas holidays to get a few more videos done. This is Episode 7 which can be watched on youtube here



We flew into the Murray Bridge Aerodrome, which is in close proximity to the Murray River. The Murray is the 3rd longest navigable river in the world after the Amazon and the Nile. It's a lesser known Aussie icon winding through some impressive Aussie scenery.
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There are towns spotted all along the Murray, rather then bridges there are ferry crossing in pretty much every town.
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We spent 8 day with family, on a luxury houseboat exploring the River.
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The Murray was once a highway for boats transporting goods to inland Australia. In recent times boats have been replaced with trucks and trains. Today the Murray is only used for recreation. The most popular activies are fishing, skiing and houseboats. We spent most of our week skiing.
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Next stop Kangaroo Island... it's off the bottom of Australia, just down from Adelaide.
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We followed the coastline down from Murray Bridge, it was a spectacular view. The photos don't do it justice. The ocean was an impressive shade of blue, against the white sandy beaches it looked picture perfect.
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Crossing over the ocean we reach the northern tip of the island. On the map the island is such a small spec compared to Australia, we got a bit of a surprise to see how big the island really is.
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Our first look at the island as we fly over the top. Being an island we some how had an image in our heads of palm tree's, tropical white sandy beaches. What we found was more dry bush lands and beaches with white sand.

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Another go around! 3 wind socks on the field and all pointing in different directions!

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Kangaroo Island!

Great Episode; Very Well Done! Pam & I just added Kangaroo Island to our ?Bucket List.? :) Thanks, Haydn & Alicia!
 
Episode 9

We've finally got Ep. 9 done - Ep9. MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY - I've hit a bird (Bird Strike).


Its OK, it wasnt us! We were on frequency when Mike Greenwood's hit a bird that smashed through his window. You can read his story here.

The ATSB report here.

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We find a pretty little coastal town built on the banks of Lake Albert, with an airstrip really close to the the town centre. It was a place we?d never heard of before, but really glad we stopped, it was a gem of a town - Meningie in South Australia.


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Departing Meningie SA

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We head back inland and make and unplanned landing at Pinnaroo to avoid more turbulance caused by the heat coming off the open ground.

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In the middle of no where, too hot to go anywhere, we wait out the heat of the day in a small patch of shade at the airstrip, before we can continue on without so many bumps!
 
I've been following your adventure on your You Tube channel and feel like at each episode I'm catching up with good friends. What a fantastic production and adventure. If you ever come to California, you have a place to stay and explore. Thanks for taking the time to document your trip.
 
Christmas



We continue on our adventure and decide to head home for Christmas.

No 10 - Unexpected Flight Home





We spend the day swatting flies at Pinaroo airstrip while waiting for cooler temperatures.





We plan the longest leg yet, almost 3 and a half hours to take us home for Christmas.






With an overnight stop in Mildura for fuel...


... and found out that one of our fuel cards had expired (1 year earlier) and had not been replaced by the supplier. But its Christmas eve! Will we be able to get fuel or be stuck for another few days???



Its all OK! We were able to track down the refueller who came and assisted. He left his Christmas eve celebrations to come and get us fuel (so we didn't need to hassle him at 5am the following morning). A first light we lifted of - 2 pushes of the Garmin GMC307 auto pilot button then sat back for the next 3 hours as it accurately takes us home.




Yeah, I dont get to sleep!



I talk Alicia through setting up the descent using the G3X VNAV functions and let the aircraft take itself down the descent.


Next time we leave the inland behind and head for the islands!
 
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We have more Australian destinations to come (its just taking us a while to put the videos together. In the meantime here is some RV flying in our own back yard.

The Barrington Tops on YouTube
 
Can't load videos

Very good pictures and would like to see more, but you videos and your homepage will not load, even though I tried 3 different browsers.
 
Loading and watching videos

From episode 5 onwards, it works with the link to youtube. What a great trip you had, and beautiful pictures.
 
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