And now for something completely different.

Now that looks strange, It's green. I have spent the last couple of days working between Monkira and South Galway stations in the channel country. The differance of just a hours flying is amazing.

I flew from Windorah to Emerald taking just under 4 (flying) hours to get across the 1000 kilometers. Encountered my first real tail wind of the trip just outside of Blackall (yes the saying is true... Bugger all in Blackall) and I was getting an extra 30 knots ground speed for quite a while. A few hundred feet of differance in altitude added almost 15 knots. If I had driven it would have taking at least 13 hours due to the state of the roads. Much better than sitting in the drivers seat getting a very sore back from the roads.

Air travel out here makes a huge differance. It is over a five hour drive from Windorah to Charlieville but only one and half hours in the slow jab. Getting rid of the corners and detours cuts at least a third off the trip.

I Had my first airbourne encounter with a Wedge tail eagle at 4900' about 30 miles from Emerald. Still don't know who was more surprised. There seems to be a common theme to any Australian travel. Road kill.

I am heading down to Springsure in the morning, ERSA makes special mention of avoiding hills around the airstrip so that may be interesting. Hodgson downs had no mention of the dog leg final approach so mmmmm.