There was one day left before departure from Dili, and I would be using this day to carry out some local flights around Timor-Leste. I headed first to the flight planning room, on the second floor of a half-finished building over-looking the apron. We spent quite some time as they puzzled over what I would, and would not, be allowed to do – eventually my flight plan was entered, but minus the flight leg to the enclave of Oecusse. This would have involved flight through Indonesian airspace which, MAF told me, was entirely routine and done every day under an agreement with the Indonesians, but the flight planning folk on duty did not seem to have the courage to try this with an unfamiliar aircraft.

I met Meg at the entry gate to the airport, and we went through the rigamarole of getting permission to enter, and headed out to Planey. A few of the pilots from MAF came to check him out, and we chatted a bit about the long journey so far, as well as some last minutes tips for the various grass strips that we’d be visiting. We arranged that I would keep Ping updated with our progress, and he in turn would let the MAF caretakers at each strip know when we’d be arriving.

We departed to the west and followed the coastline along the same route that we had driven the day before, albeit a little quicker. After gaining altitude we turned south and headed inland to our first destination, the grass strip at Maliana. The interior of Timor-Leste was beautiful; rugged, forest-covered mountains interspersed with rivers and deep valleys. I flew a low pass along one side of the grass runway at Maliana to check the conditions; things looked clear, and the grass didn’t look too long, so I set up again and came in for landing. The strips on the island were all of a pretty good length, so they were not too challenging.

What very quickly became obvious was that these large grassy areas were perfect spaces for livestock to graze, and the village had taken full advantage of this. One side of Planey was quickly splattered brown, and much worse was still to come at other strips! As we pulled up to park, a horde of children from the village appeared from the strip edges and came to check out the new visitors. They were friendly and well-behaved, and it was fun to show them the cockpit, although we couldn’t really communicate. I paid the MAF caretaker the usual $10 fee, and took a few photos of the runway to send to Ping. MAF had not flown in recently, and they wanted some pictures to check the surface conditions. After a fw minutes it was time to move on and we took off on the opposite runway to our arrival, given the lack of wind and friendlier terrain in that direction, setting out through the hills for Suai.

We climbed hard, and picked our way through mountains towards the south coast, before the long tarmac runway at Suai came into view. Suai is one of the island’s large commercial airports, and in fact is newer and better equipped than Dili itself. It has a control tower, and they cleared us to fly a left downwind and then land on the uphill runway, with the sea at our backs. A truck led us to our parking spot, the only aircraft on the large apron, and we shut down and hopped out to greet the staff who had come out to meet us.

They were clearly proud of their airport and after a bit of chat about our flight, they took us on a tour of the terminal. It was large, new, and clearly very under-used! We made our way back to the aircraft, and were asked to wait a few minutes, as the airport director was on her way in and was keen to meet us. Not long after she arrived, and it was clear that it wasn’t just a courtesy call – she had concerns!

When we filed our flight plan I had let the staff know what we’d be doing – a tour of the island, landing at each of the airports along the way. Apparently this intention had not made it into the plan, and for some reason ATC had assumed that we only wanted to overfly each airport in a big loop and land back at Dili. They were concerned that they hadn’t heard from us, although they had specifically handed us off from their frequency onto the common traffic frequency as we left the Dili area. The airport director promised to straighten everything out, and we were free to continue on our way.

We departed downhill, out towards the waterline, and turned left to fly east along the coast towards our next destination. This was the grass strip of Same, back in the interior of the island. Final approach brought us very close to a mountain off to the right-hand side, before dropping down to touch down in the fairly long grass, rolling to a halt halfway along the strip where a small collection of residents was waiting to greet us.

This time the greeters included not only the MAF caretaker and local children, but a policeman who politely requested a selfie. We took photos once again to send back to MAF, and paid the caretaker his due. Take-off was back out the same way we had landed once again, taking care to give the mountain a wide berth! We turned left along the coast once again towards Viqueque.

Viqueque is a long gravel strip situated inside the bend of a river, but apparently still supports enough vegetation to result in a prodigious quantity of animal mess. After a strip inspection we touched down from the north, trying to avoid the puddles which were on the runway from the recent rain, but still managing to increase Planey’s brown coating by an order of magnitude.

After another round of hanging out, showing the children around Planey and so on, we back-taxied slightly before turning and performing a soft field take-off in an attempt to minimise the effect of the wet surface. This went off without a hitch and we continued east towards the tip of the island, and the grass strip at Lospalos. A strip inspection showed the field to be in decent condition, so I circled and touched down from the south. The field is long and I didn’t pay as much attention to the wind as I should have – the tailwind was a lot stronger than it seemed, and the grass a bit wetter. We came to a halt just before the end of the strip, which was a bit too close for comfort!

No MAF caretaker had arrived this time, but a family on motor scooters had been passing by and came to see what was going on. We chatted for a while, to the extent that we could without sharing a language, and they posed for some photos with us and the plane. They soon went on their way and we hopped in, swung Planey round into the wind, and set off once again.

Our penultimate new airfield to visit that day was Baucau. On the northern coast of Timor-Leste, this is one of the four hard runways in the country, and the smallest of said airports. As we pulled into the parking area a couple of gentlemen came out to meet us and had me sign a visitor book, which they used to keep track of aircraft movements. There was nothing else going on here so we took off after a few minutes and headed towards the most “touristy” of our destinations that day, Atauro Island.

The (extinct) volcanic island of Atauro sits just north of Dili, and has a population of a little over 9,000 people. The ferry ride from Dili takes about two hours and is the main way of getting to and from the island. The airstrip here is one of the shortest in Timor-Leste, so I conducted a careful inspection pass before setting up for a final approach from the north. All went well, and we parked up at the southern end of the strip where the MAF caretaker was waiting to meet us. He called us a tuktuk, and we took a ride north to the small settlement of Beloi, and the small resort known locally as Barry’s Place.

Barry’s Place is a small eco-resort, run by an expat Australian. Things were very quiet as we arrived, with just a couple of backpackers sitting at a small table enjoying a drink. We got chatting to them, and found that they had just completed a hike all the way from one side of the island to the other, no mean feat given the elevation changes. They were tent camping over the other side of the island, which sounded awful to me in this heat and humidity! We picked up some drinks ourselves and made our way to the beach, to relax for a while and enjoy the small picnic that Meg had thoughtfully packed.

After a rest and a swim, Barry called another tuktuk for us and we headed back to Planey.

Our final flight was a short hop over the bay back to Dili – no two-hour ferry ride here. We joined on a right base, landed, and were directed back to our parking position in the middle of apron B. We were not done for the day however – not by a long shot. We were departing early the next morning to fly to Australia, who have very strict biosecurity laws, and Planey was covered in cow mess. I suspected that the biosecurity staff would not be thrilled about this, so we got to work. No hosepipe available on apron B, so we spent two hours hauling buckets of water to and fro, and attacking the mess with sponges. Eventually, with us dirty, sweaty and exhausted, we had him spotless, and we stumbled our way to the airport exit.

The last commercial flight for the day had been and gone, and therefore so had all the airport taxis. We made our way to the main road, me limping as I’d developed blisters in the rather crappy flip-flops which I’d been wearing since Atauro, and Meg sweet talked the policemen stationed there into helping us find a taxi. After much needed showers back at the hotel we met Meg’s parents, and a senior member of their church, for dinner at JL World again, this time trying the European restaurant upstairs – it was just as good as the other had been the night before and we went home for the night well fed, and ready for further adventures. Alex met me at the hotel, unexpectedly, to take care of the invoice. One less task for the next day.

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The day started off with another long stint in the flight planning office. Flights between Dili and Australia apparently always go through Darwin, and that was the only flight plan which the staff member helping me had any knowledge about filing. We’d been talking at cross purposes for almost half an hour before he even realised that we were going to Broome. There was great uncertainty about how to file the route, but eventually after an hour he phoned his director who told him to just file the flight plan I had provided in the first place, and we were good to go.

I had been communicating with the fuelers by WhatsApp and they arrived at Planey moments after I did, ready to dispense a barrel of Avgas. Although I had taken on enough fuel in Darwin to (I thought) get us all the way to Broome, the previous day’s flying had been more extensive than I’d expected, and I thought it better to be safe and take on a bit more fuel. The fuelers were quick and efficient – no need to use my own pump, luckily – and we were soon ready for departure.

The final task was immigration. Alex led us through the private terminal, labeled “VVIP”, as apparently plain old “VIP” was not important enough. The process was quick and easy, and Alex waved us off at the door and left us to walk across the commercial apron and along to Planey. We donned our lifejackets, boarded, and called for engine start. This was soon granted, followed after a short wait by our ATC clearance, and we completed the pre-flight checks and backtracked for departure.

We were assigned the FILOM2 departure, and we climbed hard, crossing MUBRA intersection at 8,000ft before heading en-route. Dili approach handed us off to Kubang Approach, but despite repeated attempts we were not able to establish contact with them until we were well south of the island. They didn’t have much to say to us, and just wished us a pleasant journey as we struck out across the ocean towards the Australian coast.

We settled in to pass the time for the several-hour sea crossing. Music over the intercom always helps, and Meg took advantage of the time to do some accounts work on her laptop.

There wasn’t much traffic on the radio; we heard a couple of helicopters operating in and out of Truscott airfield, supporting the offshore gas production fields that dot this area of sea. One of these (a Sikorsky S92) was servicing a pipe-laying vessel, the Audacia, that was working on the project I’m employed on. It was a fun novelty to run into something that I hear about in the office on a regular basis!

This part of the world’s oceans is a particularly beautiful one, dotted with small shoals and atolls that turn the sea a myriad shades of blue and turquoise, becoming more and more numerous as one approaches the coast. We contacted Melbourne Center (the entirety of Australian airspace away from major airports in divided between Melbourne and Brisbane, even if thousands of miles from those cities) to let them know we were approaching their airspace, and were soon handed over to Broome approach and cleared to land. This time I had remembered to apply for parking in advance.

For some reason we were directed to the middle of a large apron down the south end of the GA area with nowhere to tie down Planey, instead of the normal GA visitor parking. I wondered if this was because we were an international arrival, but when arriving at Broome in 2019 from Indonesia I’d been sent to the usual GA transient area. Whatever the reason, Australia Border Force were there to meet us and this time, in a first for me, they had a dog! He was lifted into Planey to have a good sniff around, and gave us the all clear.

Meg sorted us out with a hotel in Cable Beach, just down the road from where Griffin and I had stayed, and we took a taxi there. This hotel was a bit fancier than last week’s Broome stay, including an outdoor bathroom! We hurried down to the beach to catch the sunset, before returning to the pub which Griffin and I had visited on our first night, and ordering far too much food.

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We started the next day with a swim before taking a taxi back to the airport. I had called Air BP at the airport the day before, and arranged for them to meet us at 0830am to refuel Planey for the day’s travels. Unfortunately, this particular Air BP location continued their track record of being absolutely awful and arrived slightly late, in a Jet-A truck, telling us that they still had another two jets to fuel before they’d even be going to fetch the Avgas truck and coming to us.

Their message, that small aircraft were of no relevance to them, was received loud and clear. I checked the tanks and determined that we had enough fuel to comfortably fly to Newman, so we decided to depart and refuel there instead. I pre-flighted, and we received start clearance and headed out to the south, towards Western Australia’s dry and remote interior.

The airspace was fairly quiet, with the only traffic we spotted being a couple of Network Aviation flights operating between Perth and Broome. Planey’s performance was quite sprightly now, with just a few hours’ fuel on board, and the high climb rate was welcome in allowing us to get up high out of the bumps and hot air.

It was just a couple of hours’ flight to Newman. I had stopped off here once before during my circuit of Australia in 2022, staying for the night at the Oasis worker’s camp next to the airport. This time we would just be stopping long enough to refuel and visit the facilities. Nobody was around, and we quickly finished fueling and prepared to depart once again.

We taxied back to the runway and took off on our second flight of the day – this would take us much of the way down towards Perth with a quick stop at Mount Magnet, just so that I could tick it off on my map of “airports visited”. Despite its aridity and remoteness, the desert presented a constantly changing array of sceneries and landscape types, meaning that the flight was never boring.

Mount Magnet airport had very little of interest to offer, so after a few minutes to stretch our legs and take photos we took off on the final short hop to Payne’s Find. We followed the highway at a fairly low level, getting good views of road trains and other impressively large loads being hauled to and from the mines that dot this part of Australia.

I had selected Payne’s Find as a night stop, being keen to visit yet another of these iconic Australian institutions, the roadhouse. Like many others, Payne’s Find has an airstrip adjacent to the roadhouse, largely set up to provide a landing place for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, but also very convenient for itinerant pilots looking for a place to stay; options are limited in the outback of Western Australia.

I overflew the field for an inspection before touching down on the favoured runway, and taxiing to parking. The dirt runway was in remarkably good condition with not a bump on it. Barely had we alighted before a ute pulled up with a gentleman on board. This was Dave, one of the very few local residents, and the caretaker of the airstrip. He offered us a lift over to the roadhouse which we gladly accepted, once Planey was covered up and secured for the night.

Dave dropped us at the roadhouse and invited us to call him in the morning for a lift back to Planey. We checked into our accommodation and relaxed for a while before making our way over to the roadhouse for dinner. Impressively, food service was offered on a 24 hour basis, but we were tired and had no desire to stay up late so we didn’t take advantage of the long hours! We tucked into burgers as the Pope’s funeral service played in the background, before heading back to the accommodation for an early night.

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The final day of the trip dawned to perfect weather – a high overcast keeping temperatures down and the air smooth, but not getting in the way. Before flying however, we had a special visit in store. After breakfast we called Dave, and he collected us and drove us over to his house. Here he and his wife Gail had set up a large animal rescue center called PilRoc Retreat, primarily targeted at kangaroos, but with various other animals tagging along. We started off in the living room which had multiple baby kangaroos hung in pouches around the walls, and a Tawny Frogmouth bird perched up near the ceiling.

We were each given a baby kangaroo (a joey) and a bottle, and given the opportunity to feed them their morning meal. After this they were given a chance to hop around a little, and then returned to their bag, mimicking the lifestyle that they’d be following if they were still in their mother’s pouch. Dave and Gail then took us to the back yard, which had several enclosures for progressively older kangaroos – each step had less human contact, preparing them for eventual release into the wild. One particularly large and apparently not terribly smart kangaroo was introduced to us as a permanent resident, however, attempts to release him having been unsuccessful!

As well as kangaroos, a variety of birds were resident at Dave and Gail’s, the most impressive of which were two large Wedge Tailed Eagles. Both had injured their wings to such an extent that they could not be safely released into the wild, but they had a comfortable home in their enclosure at Payne’s Find.

Our visit came to an end, and Dave and Gail drove us back to Planey to watch us depart. There wasn’t far at all left to go now, with our final destination of Perth just a couple of hours away. We backtracked and took off from the lovely smooth runway, turning south towards the city of Perth and our lunch stop, Rottnest Island. As we flew the landscape rapidly changed from arid outback to arable land, vast grain fields stretching out below us interspersed by a multitude of tiny farming towns.

Perth International’s airspace slowly drove us lower as we neared the coast and skirted their control zone to the north on our way to Rottnest Island. Laying 10 nautical miles off the coast of Perth, the water crossing was not too intimidating compared to our flights on the previous days.

A skydiving aircraft was dropping jumpers on the eastern end of the island, and a Piper from a flight school was conducting practice take-offs and landings. We slotted into the traffic, flying a downwind on the south side of the island and touching down to the east. Apart from another C182, belonging to the Rottnest Island air taxi, we were the only aircraft on the apron.

I helped Meg unload her limited luggage. She had decided to stay for a night on Rottnest before continuing to the mainland by ferry. We walked the ten minutes into town where she was able to check in to her hotel and drop off her bags, before we wandered down to a nearby Italian restaurant for lunch. Meg was turned away for wearing too revealing a top, but was allowed in after a quick wardrobe adjustment, and we relaxed over a lunch of meats and cheeses. We walked the meal off with a stroll to an ice-cream shop, and then a wander along the seafront to admire the island’s famous Quokkas.

Meg walked me back to the airport and waved me off for the final flight, a very short hop from Rottnest to Jandakot. Jandakot is the general aviation airport in Perth, and is particularly busy. Before departing I had taken care to review the arrival procedures and everything went smoothly, although ATC clearly recognised me as a newcomer and gave me very clear instructions. I touched down on runway 24R and taxied to the far end of the north apron, meeting my new hangar landlord Bruce and finally putting Planey away in his new home.

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