Burketown Day 5 - Gory for Glory

I had to move out of my accommodation this morning. The local council had booked out all the rooms here at Savannah Lodge months ago even before I booked in so I knew about it. I just hoped someone didn’t turn up and all would be ok. So there I was, 4.30am, in the dark, carrying my bags to reception for storage, when SPLAT! I stepped on a big fat cane toad. Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

The good news is my day got much better after that. We took off at dawn once again and got some lift pretty much at the end of the runway. There was once again talk about ‘dry glory’ but there was also a line of cloud that looked promising. Motor gliders took off in different directions, everyone maintaining radio contact and reporting on what they were finding. Maybe it’s because we haven’t been spoiled by the real thing, but as the others were giving up, we kept finding lift. We felt our way around the sky, to the front of the cloud line, going  up up up, all the way to 9,500 feet ending up about 80km west of Burketown, near Doomagee. It wasn’t Morning Glory, but boy it was fun!

We were up for 2h40min and used up a whole10 litres of fuel and maybe, oh, 10ml of oil. What can I say.

I also had a chance to go fishing this morning after we got back from flying. You know those sandbars on the river near the threshold of runway 03? That’s where we went. Really! Geoff knows the right spots to go, he is a very accomplished fisherman. There is a photo of him in the Burketown Pub that proves it – he’s caught a fish so big it’s as tall has he is. We didn’t catch anything this morning, but nothing caught us either, so that’s good. We might go out again this afternoon.

There is now legend in Morning Glory circles that accidentally stepping on a cane toad increases the chances of a Morning Glory flight. I recon if all the boys do it tomorrow morning, we’ll be set.

Sacrificial cane toad, summuning the Morning Glory



A promising cloud line - from the bottom



Cruising along the front near the top

Back lower down, these small clouds looked good, but only gave us sink.



Back to the big one to get the lift




The air was nice and smooth



Perfect for sharing with a Ximango

A whispy lower cloud layer - very pretty

Leaving the cloud behind and heading back to Burketown

Eagle footprints on the sandbar

No crocs here today (or fish)

Flying and fishing before lunchtime is good for the soul.