16 Mar 2007 - A busy day

A very busy day today. Strangely itchy today. Surely just psychological..


First, Snake bay, for the 'Milikapiti store' run. I got SATURATED

Second. Bathurst Harbour, for the 'Victor Mu' store run. Again, saturated. Right when I land, the rain arrives. I came back with some local artwork in a huge, flat plywood crate for the National Gallery. It had to go on my plane, as no other plane was wide enough!

And at the last minute, six young people needed to get to Garden point, another indigenous settlement, on the far side of Bathurst Island.

Confusion sets in this time, as I was scheduled to take the six seater (for those in the know, it’s called a Lance), and I’ve got six passengers.

Let me explain, cause I was a little head scratchy as well. The six seater was booked. Which means pilot + five, usually. Except this six seater has a seventh seat, that I’d earlier taken out to carry the freight (actually, I’d mistaken it for an armrest, so didn’t put it back in). In any case, the six seater can actually take seven (technically, eight, if some of them are the right age and weight). Clearer? Probably not. Never mind, I don’t think the passengers had done it before either, and probably wouldn’t have but for the fact they all got seatbelt each, which seemed to convince them it was acceptable practice, and not a con job on our behalf.

In any case, the six of them were all lightweights, as the locals tend to be, and the total load was lighter, and still more roomy, than when the plane was squeezed full of freight earlier on. So it wasn’t such a bad trip, except for the scary little cloud on the way in, though even this was a non event, it just looked like a big dog.











A big dog


The only drama was not on the airside, but when one of the kids at passed through the airport gate, and her sister closed it on her head. Blood everywhere, and two kids screaming, one because she got hit, the other cause she new she was going to be. Oh well, off to the clinic…




A Darwin Sunset