The weather for the flight to Port Hedland was great. I woke at 6am, and drove up to the airport to meet Lachie and Griffin just after 7. I found a helpful airport employee who let me through the gate to get airside, insisting that I wear a high-vis vest. An Australian Border Force twin-turboprop patrol aircraft was getting ready for departure, presumably to head out and scan the seas for illegal vessels.

We pre-flighted Planey and poured in the fuel that we had bought the day before, putting it into the tip tanks. With no ladder to hand, the bonnet of the aircraft tug made a very convenient place to stand and access the tanks.

Being an “overseas territory” of Australia, rather than part of Australia proper, means that customs and immigration controls are maintained between the island and the mainland, as well as biosecurity restrictions. The flight from Christmas Island to Port Hedland would therefore be very similar in terms of paperwork and planning to the previous leg, from Malaysia. On the plus side, no flight permit would be required though.

The Australian Border Force staff met us at the airport and handed us our clearance papers – it really couldn’t have been quicker or easier compared to the shambles with immigration in Johor Bahru! We said goodbye to Lachie and, after a thorough pre-flight, started up the engine for the upcoming flight of more than eight hours to the Australian continent.

We took off to the south and turned left, following the coast north to see some of the island from the air before we departed. We overflew the defunct resort and casino, the golf course, and then the settlement before continuing to check out the detention center from above. This done, we skirted the south coast and the blowholes before flying over the South Point settlement ruins, and striking out over the open ocean.

Winds were not entirely favourable, due to a tropical cyclone off to the east that was slowly moving in our direction, but we had plenty of fuel. The only downside was that we’d arrive after typical working hours for the Australian Border Force in Port Hedland, and would have to pay their overtime fees, but compared to most countries these were not high.

Visibility was great, with just a few scattered clouds around. Two hours into the flight we transferred some of the fuel we’d uploaded on the island from the wingtip tanks to the mains, to start feeding it to the engine. Parameters on the engine monitor remained entirely unchanged. A short time later we spotted Jetstar flight 97 from Perth to Singapore heading in the opposite direction (we identified it by looking at the ADSB read-out on the Aera 660). We chatted to them on the air-to-air frequency for a bit, and they confirmed that the weather in the direction we were heading remained good.

The 15 knot headwind gradually reduced to 10, and then 5 knots as we flew. We only saw one vessel out in the open ocean, which looked like an ore carrier steaming towards Australia to load iron ore or similar. About halfway across we sprayed the insecticide needed to meet our biosecurity obligations, filming ourselves in case evidence was needed, and filling in the required certificate. A couple of hours out from Port Hedland we spotted another commercial flight passing above us – this was an Airbus A320 belonging to an Indonesian airline that I had never heard of, TransNusa, and was on its way from Perth to Bali.

Just an hour from the coast we could pick up Melbourne Center on the VHF. A steady stream of vessels was now visible, running up and down the coast. As we coasted in we had great views of Port Hedland and the enormous amount of industry therein, all appearing to be centered around mineral export. It was not looking like a big tourist destination.

An airport official in a “ute” led us to parking, and as we shut down we were met by biosecurity and Australian Border Force. Accommodation proved tricky – despite having had plenty of availability when we checked the previous day, there was now almost nothing available. We eventually managed to secure rooms in two separate hotels within walking distance of each other and ABF were kind enough to drop us off. We ate in the restaurant of my hotel, where Griffin’s burger for some reason took an hour to prepare. We didn’t mind too much, as we were given free drinks to make up for the inconvenience.

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I started the day off with some work meetings, first from the hotel and then from the only quiet location I could find at the airport, the deserted smoking lounge. The airport setup was unusual to someone who was used to international airports; anybody could go through security to get airside, whether they were flying or not, and the only cafe was in there. I had to leave my bag behind at the security checkpoint as they didn’t like my liquids or nail scissors.

Meetings completed, Griffin and I headed back to Planey and pre-flighted, before taxiing down to the self-serve fuel. In the US self-serve fuel stations all accept credit cards, which is sensible and convenient. Some stations in Australia do, but most will only accept the “carnet card” of their own particular network, meaning that to get full coverage across the country you need to apply for four separate cards. I had done this a while before, so we were all set.

Our flight for the day was short compared to what we’d done already, just a couple of hours up the coast to the tourist town of Broome. The cyclone that was sitting offshore and affecting local weather conditions had moved a bit closer, and headwinds were up to 30 knots, so I was happy that we were not going too far.

Navigation on this leg was simple. We just tracked along the coast, striking out across the bay south of Broome as we got closer. We decided that this water crossing was a risk we were willing to take, after what we had done in the last few days.

Air traffic control directed us to the transient parking area and we shut down, being greeted by an airport employee in the ubiquitous “ute”. His first question was whether we had applied in advance for parking; we had overlooked this, and had not. He said it didn’t matter and gave a parking request form to fill out there and then. This done, he left us on our own to secure the aircraft and figure out our plans for the next couple of days. We found a place to stay in nearby Cable Beach, which we were informed was the nicest part of Broome, and caught a taxi over there. Our rooms weren’t ready so we hung out in the cafe over the road, chatting with a retired couple who were on a road trip, as we waited.

We ate dinner that night at the adjacent pub, taking advantage of the special offer on chicken parmies.

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That afternoon we headed into the main part of Broome, using rental electric scooters. This was the first time I had ridden one, and was probably the most dangerous part of the entire trip. We headed first to the lookout point that has views south over the bay, before wandering round a couple of shops, although everything was starting to close for the day.

Trying to find somewhere for a drink, we discovered that almost everywhere was closed with the exception of “The Roey”. This sprawling hospitality establishment included several bars, a backpacker hostel, and a more typical hotel. To be honest it seemed like an absolutely horrific place to stay (and the online reviews bore that view out), but they served us up some decent food in one of the quieter bars. Griffin was unlucky once again and had to wait about an hour for his, but this time we didn’t even get free drinks.

After killing a bit more time we went next door to the party bar for the (apparently) famous “Wet T” contest. It seems this is a Broome staple and features 12 volunteer guests competing in a wet T-shirt competition to win a few hundred dollars. The contest is equal opportunity, with 6 guys and 6 girls, and a very varied selection of body types. A large Aboriginal lady was the runaway winner, votes being taken by the number of hands in the air and volume and cheering – she had won the crowd over with her infectious smile and great enthusiasm! I lost Griffin for most of this time; he had met up with a group of 40 friends of his who were on a bachelor evening, and had then been kicked out of the venue for using his phone to try and message me during the contest. We made our own ways home!

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Astute readers will have noticed that we were currently heading in the wrong direction to get to Perth, the planned destination for the overall trip. This was due to a couple of weeks delay in the originally planned departure date. The intention had been to go in a fairly straight line from Port Hedland to Perth, and then a couple of weeks later, take a trip up to Darwin and out to East Timor, making the most of the Easter weekend holiday. The delay meant that these separate trip plans had merged into one.

We wanted to get away from Broome quite early, as the cyclone which had been stalking us had turned around and was now headed for Broome. We failed to get a taxi, with nobody answering the phone, but never fear – Griffin went across the road to the caravan park and arranged a lift with a retired lady who was heading out in her camper van. We rode to the airport with her and her cat, thanked her profusely, and headed back through the gate to Planey. Soon we were taking off and striking out northeast towards Kununurra for a fuel stop.

The weather was fairly typical for the time of year, the beginning of the dry season. Cumulus cloud was scattered around, with the occasional heavy rain shower and even what looked like a thunderstorm or two, but nothing that we couldn’t easily make our way around visually. We landed at Kununurra, slotting in behind a GA-8 Airvan which was doing circuits to practice take-off and landings, and taxied to the self-serve fuel. An airport employee in a ute, of course, came over to say hi and offered us a lift to the terminal to use the facilities. After a short stop we were off on our final leg to Darwin.

We dodged our way around rain showers as we made our way up the coast, the Timor Sea visible off our left wingtip. About 50 miles out we listened to the ATIS, and called Darwin up for our arrival clearance. They directed us straight in over the harbour, with plenty of industry visible below us, and Darwin city off to our left.

Tower cleared us to land on runway 36, the shorter of the runways. At 5,000ft in length it is still several times longer than we need, and it was lined up almost exactly with our approach direction. We taxied all the way to the end of the runway and headed to the self-serve fuel, although we didn’t fill up yet – instead I sent Griffin off to enquire about parking with the airport employee who was nearby. He directed us to the grass overflow area as all of the tarmac was full. Despite being a large airport, there is a remarkably small area available for visiting GA aircraft. Construction was underway on a new parking area but that was not ready yet. I decided to fuel up on departure, so as to minimise the aircraft weight and the chances of sinking into the grass.

The airport rep kindly gave us a lift to the terminal. We grabbed our rental car from space “182”, coincidentally, and drove in to town to our hotel. It was a quiet evening. Griffin was off meeting friends, so I had a curry by myself near the hotel, and settled in to rest.

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