Feeling so relaxed and ready, I was going to try two hops in one day. I had prepped the plane the day before, topping up gas and oil, and only had to do a quick check that everything was okay in the morning. The sun was just coming up as I climbed aboard and cranked the engine. It burst into life with a guttural roar and blue smoke. I was planning on flying the first leg at low altitude and not using oxygen both to save money and to sightsee.
The airport at Bali is on the very southern tip of the island. As the plane climbed out, I headed southeast and flew along some of the Lesser Sunda Islands. The ocean below was a deep blue. The islands were a deep lush green with a bright white line of surf and sand separating them from the blue of the ocean. The flight path took me over a couple of the smaller islands, but the peaks never got much above 4,000 feet.
Off to the left was Komodo Island, home to the Komodo Dragons, actually a monitor lizard. I had been fascinated as a kid by these lizards which looked like something from one of those bad Japanese horror movies, except that they were real. I remembered that Hollywood guy who, as a birthday present, got into the enclosure with the dragons at the San Diego Zoo. Unfortunately, he didn’t have sufficient respect for the slow stupid but wild lizards. One of them thought his foot looked enticing and chomped down. That’s a birthday he’ll remember.
These islands were on the forefront of an ecological dilemma. We, in the industrialized world, having already destroyed all of the natural parts of our countries, are dead set that places like Indonesia should respect their natural resources and leave them in their pristine condition for our children to enjoy.
The Indonesians, on the other hand, looked around and said, “What? You want us to stay poor farmers so your children can come see the rain forest. Fat chance, white boy,” as they headed off to whack down that forest and sell it to us to make those pretty tables we Westerners like in our front rooms. Flying over Timor, I could see large swatches of forest that had been cleared. It looked an awful lot like Oregon after the timber companies had come through an area. As I crossed the channel between Indonesia and Australia I pondered the question, 'Who was right?' Did we have a right to tell Brazil and Indonesia to stay poor after we had built our economies using our resources so their resources will be available for our children?
It was about ten in the morning when I was wheels down in Darwin, my first contact with Australia. Damn, but I had come a long way from California to Europe, through Asia and now I was on the continent of Australia. I taxied to the GA area and asked for a gas truck to meet me. As I turned off the engine, a truck pulled up. I climbed out on the wing and pointed to the gas cap.
The fellow looked over the Corsair and said, “G’Day, Mate. This one real?”
“Sure is. It was flying before either of us was even thought of being born.”
“She’s a beaut,” he said smiling. “Doing a quick turn?”
As he started unreeling the hose I leaned into the cockpit and made sure all of the gas connects were open so that the auxiliary tanks would get their load of fuel.
“Where you headed?” he asked as he ran the hose up to the cap and inserted the nozzle.
“Cairns. I want to see the barrier reef. Thought I would do some diving,” I said. When I had planned this trip, I had considered flying down to the heart of Australia and seeing Ayer’s Rock. I mean, people think of three things when they think of Australia: kangaroos, koalas, and Ayer’s Rock. But the thought of crossing all of that desolate desert just to see a rock, well, I trimmed that excursion from my final flight plan, like I did a few other side trips.
“Nice day for flying,” he said looking around at the few scattered clouds. “Well, there you go mate. All topped up, she is.”
I climbed down and took out my Visa card. He reeled up the hose and took out what looked like a small laptop. It turned out to be a Visa reader. He ran the card and typed in the amount, in Aussie dollars. The thing spit out a receipt. It was amazing, I thought. Here I was buying Avgas 9,000 miles from home and the transaction probably would clear my account before I was wheels up again. We really aren’t that far away from a world economy. Christ, it was just like stopping into the Quik Stop for gas but without the Cooper Mini.
I did a quick walk around of the plane, checked oil and gas; made sure nothing looked out of the ordinary and climbed back in. Some pilots, making a short stop like that, wouldn’t do a complete walk around before flying again. Me, I want to be that old pilot.
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Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2008