I woke up at 7am. We drove to Darwin Airport to meet with Australian Border Force in the main terminal and take care of my departure clearance from the country, as this was another international flight. As usual with ABF, the process was quick and easy, and soon I was dropped off at the entry gate to the general aviation area and made my way up to Planey where he waited for me in the grass parking area.

I pre-flighted and loaded my bags, and taxied Planey over to the fuel pumps. Here I loaded up 390 liters of Avgas, to minimise the amount of fuel that I would need to buy in Dili, East Timor – the fuel there would be supplied out of barrels, so rather less convenient. I started up and received my IFR clearance and taxi instructions, and taxied to the active runway for departure. Darwin Tower asked me how many POB I had (persons on board), and I responded “We have one POB today”. Even when solo it’s very normal to use “we” when talking to ATC but Darwin were apparently policing grammar today and I was queried about this. I let them know that “I” had one POB and they seemed satisfied.

I was cleared to take off from runway 11, and turned out left for a downwind departure to the west. My destination was Dili, 415 nautical miles away across the Timor Sea. Dili is the capital of East Timor, officially known as Timor-Leste. It comprises the eastern end of the island of Timor, the rest of which is part of Indonesia, as well as a couple of smaller islands and one coastal enclave to the west.

The country has a population of a little under 1.4 million, heavily skewed towards young people. The economy relies heavily on natural resources, primarily oil, and foreign aid. The territory was controlled by Portugal from 1769 to 1975, at which point Indonesia violently occupied the country leading to tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly of civilians. A massacre of roughly 200 people in 1991 by the Indonesian military and associated paramilitaries was a turning point for international support of the independence movement; in 1999 the country voted decisively for independence. Indonesian-related paramilitary groups violently opposed this, and the UN stepped in until 2002 when Timor-Leste became self-governed.

Two hours into the flight I made my first, and only, transfer of fuel from the ferry tank into the wings. I made contact with Dili Control 80 miles out – Timor-Leste was just coming into view ahead and soon I was coasting in, and crossing the rugged, forested territory of Timor-Leste’s interior. Air Traffic Control offered me a choice of the VOR or the Visual approach. I chose visual, and they cleared me to overfly the field at 6,700ft and join a left downwind to land on runway 08. This was a lot of height to lose in a short time, so I flew an extended downwind before turning back in and joining final approach.

I was directed to parking area B, where the marshaller pointed me to park right in the middle of the tarmac, rather than off to one side as is more normal. Clearly not a lot of other GA traffic was expected! The marshaller gave me a lift to immigration in his pickup truck where I completed the formalities, then took me back to Planey to collect my baggage and secure him for a few days parking. This done, I was led outside to meet my handling agent, Alex.

A friend of mine, Michael, had helped me organise the visit to Timor-Leste. A keen aviator himself, he had flown his small seaplane around the world, and now owned a small hotel in Dili alongside various other business ventures. He had flown himself to Dili several times, and had been able to put me in touch with the key people I’d need to know, as well as arrange the flight permits. Alex was one of these contacts, and he hung out with me at the airport cafe while we waited for my driver to arrive and take me to Michael’s hotel, the Beachside Hotel.

That evening I relaxed at the hotel, enjoying dinner on the beach and an early retreat to my bed!

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Arriving in Dili on Easter Monday, my plan was to spend 3 full days in Timor-Leste before departing on the Friday and making my way down to Perth by the end of the weekend. Today, the Tuesday, was the only day with no major plans. I set out in the morning back to the airport to meet with Captain Ping, an expat Indian pilot flying with the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) based in Dili. He had very kindly offered to brief me on the country’s various airstrips before my planned flight around them on Thursday. MAF were the primary users of all, and only users of many, and were responsible for maintenance of the village grass airstrips; they would be letting the caretakers know I was coming, and ensuring that the strips were clear for my arrival.

We spent an enjoyable hour or so chatting about our various flying adventures. Ping had been resident in Timor-Leste for quite some time now, and had met a local wife and settled down to live in Dili. MAF pilots are volunteers and do not get a salary, so from time to time they travel home to raise further funds from their home church congregations to keep the work going. It’s not an easy life! In Timor-Leste they carry out the vast majority of urgent medical transport from the outlying regions.

Equipped with a wealth of knowledge from Ping, including the MAF airstrip charts, I returned to the hotel and worked on flight planning for a while. A little later, I was joined by my new copilot Meg and her father. Like Griffin, I had met Meg through social media, but she was not a pilot. Although resident in the Philippines, her parents were living in Dili for mission work, and she had never been to visit them there. She’d originally planned to meet me in Darwin but plans got disrupted, so she flew straight to Dili instead. Somewhere during her journey she had managed to be lightly bitten by a dog, so her first action on arrival in Dili had been to track down a rabies vaccine. The three of us enjoyed a drink at the hotel before they went on their way, and I settled down to a relaxing evening and another beautiful sunset dinner on the beach.

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On Wednesday morning my guide Daniel from Eco Tours met me at the hotel right on time, and we set out for what was apparently going to be a half day tour, organised by my friend Michael. Right from the start this seemed a bit short, so I requested and was granted an extension to a full day tour, which would mean we could get out of the city and see a lot more. We headed first to the Motael Church (Igreja de Santo António de Motael), on the sea front near the center of Dili.

The first church on this site was constructed around the year 1800. The current church was initially built starting in 1901 – it was partially destroyed by the Japanese in World War 2, and reconstructed in 1955. The church has played a major role in the recent history of Timor-Leste, serving as the de facto cathedral up until completion of the new cathedral in 1989, and playing a key role in the struggle for independence. On 27 October 1991, young independence activists demonstrated against the Indonesian occupation. Pursued by Indonesian security forces, pastor Alberto Ricardo da Silva offered them protection in the church. The Indonesians stormed the church and shot activist Sebastião Gomes, who then bled to death. On 12 November 1991, after the memorial service for Gomes, a demonstration started in front of the church and led to the Santa Cruz massacre, in which at least 271 people were killed by Indonesian security forces.

On the waterfront opposite the church sits the Statue of Youth, a monument commemorating the events of that 12th November. Just along the quay is the docking point for the ferry that runs to and from the island of Atauro, which we’d be visiting the following day. After a bit of time soaking in the sights we returned to the front of the church to meet Meg, who had just arrived and would be joining us for the rest of the tour.

Our next stop was the Galeria Memoria Viva – a small museum showcasing elements from the life of President Jose Ramos-Horta. President Horta was a founding member of Fretelin, a key separatist organisation that fought for Timor-Leste’s independence. Once self-governance was achieved, he acted as foreign minister, followed by becoming the country’s second president. After a stint away working for the UN, he was re-elected to the presidency a second time in 2022.

On top of telling some of his history, the museum detailed his many achievements, as well as decorations such as a multitude of honourary degrees. Outside, a demonstration of traditional weaving techniques was on display. We departed from here and next visited the Timorese Resistance Museum, which covers the struggle for independence from Indonesia in great and sometimes graphic detail. The parallels with Bangladesh’s story, which Ben and I had learned a little about earlier in the journey, were striking.

After a quick stop at a tourist market, where nothing caught our fancy, and a visit to the mall to obtain a local SIM card (my eSIM provider was failing to provide any service at all, despite assurances that it would work here) we started to head west out of the city. Along the way we stopped off at the sites of two papal visits to Timor-Leste, located next to each other. The first was by Pope John Paul II in 1989, the second by Pope Francis just a few months prior in September 2024. With the recent passing of Pope Francis, tributes were everywhere, including flowers piled up against the gate to the grounds where he had held his mass. This had been attended by 600,000 people, half the population of the entire country!

The city very quickly gave way to countryside, and we sped along the coastal road, one of the few paved roads in the country. Daniel took us first to the Ai Pelo prison, situated near the waterfront a little way west out of Dili. Construction began in 1889, and occasional expansions were added through until about 1914. The prison accommodated both common criminals and political prisoners, and also housed inmates brought from Macau, another Portuguese colony, whose prisons were overcrowded. The prison was deactivated in 1939 after receiving heavy damage from floods; some buildings were converted into a Japanese command post during World War 2.

A little further west still, and we came to the Liquica Catholic Church. This church was the location of another tragic massacre carried out by the occupying Indonesian forces, this time in 1999, with roughly 200 people killed. Across the road from the church was a traditional hut, constructed in the center of a small park as an attraction for tourists.

As we carried on driving west, we came to a small lake, which Daniel told us was part of a protected nature reserve. We stopped off to take a look, receiving waves from a couple of Timorese gentlemen who were relaxing by the water after having caught a handful of fish, which were now hanging from the handlebars of their motorbike.

Not far beyond the lake we arrived at our furthest destination, Maubara Fort. This fort was constructed in the year 1756 by the Dutch, with whom the town of Maubara had allied themselves, becoming a Dutch enclave within Portuguese East Timor. Over the next hundred years relations with the Portuguese were turbulent, with multiple attacks on Maubara by Portuguese aligned forces. Eventually in 1859 the Dutch ceded the territory to Portugal. These days, the fort is somewhat overgrown, with a small restaurant located inside, and a couple of cannons on the front corners for display.

After a short look around, we retired to a cafe on the waterfront for refreshments. This was the low season for tourism, and the selection was limited to tamarind juice only. This was remarkably sour, made drinkable by addition of copious quantities of sugar.

After juice we set out to drive back towards Dili. Along the way we paused in a few locations to check out picturesque roadside fruit stalls, as well as a gravel mining operation in a riverbed. There were small operations like this in a few of the riverbeds that we passed – during the dry season there wasn’t much water flowing, and the wide gravel beds were ripe for the picking. I wondered about the prevalence of flash flooding, but assumed that the workers were experienced and well informed on the signs to watch out for.

Close to Dili we passed the Tibar Bay port. This is the largest infrastructure project in Timor-Leste, situated just to the west of Dili, and was constructed from 2019 through to 2022. It’s a public-private partnership between Timor-Leste and a large French conglomerate, and was constructed by a Chinese firm who specialise in ports. With a storage capacity of 20,000 containers, the port has a throughput of up to one million containers a year, a significant upgrade from the Port of Dili which was the main port up until Tibar Bay went into operation.

We passed back through Dili, and out to the other side of the city, to our final stop of the day – the “Cristo Rei” statue. This enormous 27m (89ft) tall statue sits atop Cape Fatucama, and was a gift to Timor-Leste from the Indonesian government in 1996. This was during Indonesian occupation, and reception of the statue was muted at best, and in many cases quite scathing. However, since independence the statue has grown on people and is now said to be a source of pride. The public can access the statue via 570 steps, running up from a beach and carpark at the base of the cape, along which are representations of the Catholic church’s 14 stations of the cross.

After hanging out at my hotel for a bit, we walked back along the beach to enjoy dinner at the JL World resort. This large new resort hotel was not yet in operation for overnight guests, but had two excellent restaurants in operation, one Asian and one European themed. Despite its lack of air conditioning, Meg talked me into trying the Asian restaurant, and we were not disappointed.

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