12 Mar 2007 – Seven Spirit Bay, and Maningrida

Two flights today.
The first is a relatively short hop, across to the Coburg Peninsula, to a place called Vashen Head. What’s there? Not much, just a strip of land, containing another strip called a ‘runway’. Earlier I’d been briefed on the presence of buffalo, and that the people greeting me would ‘scare them off’ before I come down. Well there were no buffalo to be seen, but plenty of evidence that they were there. Try as I might to miss it, some of it went splat.

The only day I don’t get any rain, and it sets like concrete on the plane.

Buffalo dung

Don’t ask me what it’s like at Seven Spirit Bay. I went to their website once and got scared off by the prices. They’re obviously trying to encourage pilots to land, but not stay. Perhaps one day I’ll divert there because of storms, instead of the less civilized outpost of Bathurst Island.

The afternoon trip was to a place called Maningrida. The less said about this trip the better, suffice to say I stuffed a couple of things up. Nothing dangerous, but I’m new to this charter business, and made some presumptions I shouldn’t have. Curious? The price to know is a pot of beer, next time you’re in town.