Beechcraft Musketeer Sport III 19A VH-SQB
Leg 6: Nullarbor Motel to Caiguna
Front ~ Next - Leg 7: Caiguna to Esperance
Got up at dawn. Knocked on Simon's bedroom, to make sure he was getting up.
I messed around for a while getting the weather reports. Eventually I was able to get them faxed to the roadhouse. There were thunderstorms North of Esperance. So any thoughts we'd had of cutting directly across from Caiguna to Narrogin were discarded. It looked like the further south we flew, the safer we'd be from any storm activity.
We could see that it was a beautiful time of day, and were pretty keen to get going. We quickly had a bite of breakfast (or I did - Simon wasn't eating first thing in the morning), cleaned the windscreens, put some fuel in, and put some oil in. We also bought a spare container of oil, in case we couldn't get any at Caiguna.
| Dawn on the Nullarbor Plain. |
| It's very flat. |
We taxied out to the runway. This was Simon's leg - since we'd flown three legs yesterday, we had effectively switched so that Simon would fly the morning leg. It was fun taxiing out through the flat scrub - I was excited about this leg, because we were going to be flying out over the cliffs along the Great Australian Bight.
| Taxiing out for takeoff. |
| Departing Nullarbor Motel. You can see the runway leading to the motel, at the top-left. The main highway heads past. |
| We're flying towards the edge of the vast Nullarbor Plain. In a minute we'll go over the cliffs. The sun bursting through the early morning cloud lights the Southern Ocean like spotlights would a stage. |
It was around 7am when we actually took off. This was easily our earliest departure yet, which we were pleased about, because we knew we would cover some good distance today. We headed due south for the coast, and within a couple of minutes we were swinging out over the cliffs.
We were afforded a view which you just can't get from a car. We were able to swing out over the water, always within gliding distance of the coast, and look back at the colours of the cliffs.
Where we reached the cliffs, we could clearly see two separate tracks going right along the coast. From our position, out over the sea, we could see that the cliffs actually cut away under the track which was closer to the edge. But you'd have no idea if you were on the land.
| Our first view of the cliffs as we swing out over the ocean. You can see clearly the two tracks parallel to the coastline. When you're over the ocean, you can see that the caves and cliffs actually cut underneath the closer track. Not that you'd know it from the ground. |
| Doing a tight turn to track parallel to the cliffs. Note the cliffs undercutting the closer track? You don't get views like this when you're driving across the nullarbor. |
| The cliffs go on and on for ages. |
The cliffs were amazing, so spectacular, and such a good way to see them. After tracking along them for quite a while, we decided to drift inland back to follow the main highway. This meant that if we had any trouble, we would be able to land somewhere that we'd be able to get help from passing motorists.
The highway was very straight, and very long. I have never driven across the Nullarbor, but it must be quite an experience. From the air, we did see something we'd heard about - runways built into the highway. Periodically, the road effectively turns into a runway for a while, with a different paving, and even piano keys. Maybe for the RFDS, to attend accidents?
| In places, the road turns into a runway. Even the markings change - we could see the piano keys when we got closer. |
It was pretty easy to navigate this stretch. Every now and then, there were distinctive roads branching either north, or south to the cliffs. The best navigation features, at our height of around 1500 ft, were the radio masts. They occurred every 15 or 20 minutes, and allowed us to pinpoint our position easily. We had a howling tailwind yet again, which we were very grateful for. We were making around 110kts - tailwind must have been 15-20 kts.
| To the north, the plain extends, dead flat, forever. |
| Further west, the cliffs had an additional band of light colour in them. Not far inland, there are big underground caves, because there's a lot of limestone under here. |
| As suddenly as they started, the cliffs stop. |
| The BP roadhouse (and airstrip) right on the South Australia - Western Australia border. |
We were making great time - we crossed the South Australia - Western Australia border at around 9am. We did get out over the cliffs again, and found the cliffs seemed even higher, and had an additional band of colour in them. We went past some small places such as Eucla and Midora, and eventually made it to Caiguna.
Caiguna was a fun roadhouse to land at, because we could taxi along a road right to the back of the roadhouse, with front-end loaders driving around us. We had a second breakfast (Simon's first - he hadn't been up to eating first thing), and put fuel and some more oil in Squibby.
| Turning onto finals at Caiguna. It was an interesting strip - although a large rectangle is cleared, there's definitely a preferred part to land on, running at a slightly different direction to the cleared area. |
| Final approach. Away from the preferred strip, it gets bumpy and there are weeds, so you really want to land on the narrow section. |
| At the end of the road, the 'taxiway' looked suspiciously like a normal road. This took us to the rear of the roadhouse. |
| There was lots of activity going on. We had to taxi past front-end loaders, among other things. People just looked up at us like we were just another vehicle sharing the road. |