Happy Days

This job only gets better!  I have been to so many new places this month, and all across the country, even overnighting in Perth and flying to Broome.  I have met Interesting People in business class, and had time to stop and smell the roses.  I’ve climbed mountain after mountain and seen more of Australia from above than I ever hoped to see.

Yesterday, I got called in to go to Hamilton Island to ferry an aircraft out, and I leapt at the chance.  Now that I’m back in Canberra (where we ferried it), it is -1C currently and I am missing the tropical sunshine and beaches we momentarily encountered.

The moment you step foot outside the terminal you are at the water, the ferries dock here and the only road transport is by golf cart.  I wanted to go explore, but apparently we were there to work.  

The actual runway is built into the bay, with vividly blue water stretching into infinity.

The hill is where most of the holiday homes are, and where I wish I were right now.  

We had to wait a couple of hours for the engineer to fix our aircraft, but we didn’t have time to visit the island as we had planning and ballast to arrange.  And of course, they didn’t have any ballast.  The solution?  Send the boys down to the beach with shovels and hessian sacks, and fill ‘me up with 400kg of sand.  Yep.  I asked if they had any buckets and spades so we could pretend to have a beach on board on the flight home, but unfortunately they were all out.

And then of course, flying home we had another sunset all to ourselves.

From 37,000’ you can even see the gentle curvature of the earth.  

This, this is why I do it.  I’ve found my passion again and nothing so far has managed to wipe the smile off my face.  

Checked and Climbing

The blog has become slightly abandoned.  I blame this on work, climbing, Lily, and a general lack of interest/motivation.

Most importantly, the small Floof is okay, despite two vet visits, multiple broken nights, and two lots of antibiotics.  (& $1000). She also has a big shaved patch from the scans they did, which makes her look rather silly.  And Ceri brought me Sambuca from Auckland so here is a picture of Lily, her shaved patch, and my Sambuca.

No dogs were harmed in the taking of this photo.

No Sambuca was drunk either, as I went to work shortly after.

Which brings us to the topic of work!  My check was on Monday and Tuesday - it has to be four sectors for a check to line at this company, so it is usually broken over two days.  I did an Adelaide return on the first day and a Townsville return on the second day.  I did make a few silly mistakes, as one does on a check, but in general it went really well.  I astounded the checkie with ridiculous levels of knowledge... as I had a fair idea what he was going to ask, I went into - ridiculously - high levels of information, and he got frustrated pretty fast and stopped asking me questions. An example of this, when asked a memory item, would be to add that the QRH had nine dots between “FLASHING cargo smoke agent 1 discharge switch” and “PUSH”.  Like I said, ridiculous 😜.  (It worked)

The very first day after my check I got called off reserve to go to Canberra and that was almost scarier than the check.  My very first line flight!  Once there, it actually went really well - very relaxed and good fun, so now I have new courage to continue...

I have just been called off reserve again today, so that’s two for three this week with one more reserve tomorrow.  I guess it’s true that once you’re checked to line they suddenly need you!

I’ve still been trying to fit some climbs in around work.  Having been on lates for the last few weeks, I’ve been climbing in the morning before work.  It was strange this week climbing Coochin without Lily, as she was at the vet’s, so mainly I’ve been doing non-dog friendly climbs like Beerwah.  In fact, tomorrow morning I have a sunrise East Beerwah planned, as my reserve starts at 8 so that should have me home by then.

I found a very small shiny lizard on Beerwah yesterday that T surrounded with his hands to prevent it getting away while I took a photo.

That’s about all I’ve got... although hopefully tomorrow I will have some nice sunrise photos!  I do have some work photos... but I can’t post them publicly.