Waggstravels 2011: November 2011: Flights north and south

This month has been very busy with a lot of road travel around the Top Rnd to mines in Jabiru and around Pine Creek. But the flying continues. I has a couple of days down in Alice Springs again; this time having to explain the rules to a recalcitrant client. But this week on the 24th I made a visit to a mine out on the Tiwi Islands, a very special place about 20-25 minutes flying across the Arafura Sea to the north of Darwin.
The flights were unusual as they were the first in piston engined aircraft, not only for this year but for a while. SInce my son started flying jets for his work piston time has been limited and the propellor planes for work have usually been turbo props.
Still on the way out we had 3 pax and a pilot in a Piper PA31/A1 Navajo. As we were preparing to leave Darwin we had to wait for other ground traffic which included this odd sight of a Piper Chieftain taxying with no engine cowlings on

.........and then we saw this famous old DC3 (VH_MMA) which saw service in WW2 and is having a major overhaul, hence the lack of wings...............

....................and then this TAP (Portugal) Airbus 340 (CS-TOM) which is looking very grubby in an old all-white colour sheme, a far cry from the vibrant red green and white of its former life.....

Anyway after the delays we were finally off to work and after about 20 minutes we found ourselves flying over a mixture of gum tree forest and forest plantations to land on a gravel strip called Jessie Creek

We had busy day which included driving arund a lot on the island we were on (Melville Island) using gravel roads and seeing wild water buffalo as we moved from site to site.

The day was very hot and we did a fair bit of walking around but it is the build up to the wet season so the humidity was high and lots of water to drink was the order of the day. Soon it was time to head home.

Back at the strip we found our return trip was changed to a Cessna 210 - single engined aircraft......