Fly with me ... across Australia

[Mad Aussie]

Hi all

I once took you along for a little virtual bicycle ride, and then JJeling stepped it up with his cool virtual tour of his holiday cruise recently.

My wife and I just returned from a weeks holiday in Western Australia (WA) which we enjoyed immensely.

The map below shows our home city of Brisbane, Queensland, and the route the Boeing 737 airliner took to take us over to Perth in WA where we were picked up by Phil, a long time friend of mine (my oldest and dearest), who lives now in Bunbury.
Bunbury is about 2 hours drive south of Perth and is where we were based under the excellent guidance and amazing hospitality of Phil.

The insert shows the area we covered and some of the towns we visited for those interested.
I realize the map is a bit small but you can google map this area easy enough to see more detail if you wish of course.

Australia is a big country (almost the size of the USA without including Alaska) and WA was very different from our own area.

As I get the photos processed over the next week or so, I'll keep adding a bunch here for those that want to sit back and come along. You'll see the red deserts in the outback, some amazing birds, quaint sights and sites, a rugged and violent coastline with incredible geological interest, limestone caves, and more.

It was a holiday to remember and I'd like to you enjoy it with us.



Flight Stats
I took along a little cycling GPS unit and on our return flight I recorded the journey ... here are some stats from the flight home ...

Distance - 3746 km
Altitude - 2200 m
Max Speed - 1126 kph
Average Speed - 871 kph
Flight Time - 4hrs 18 mins

Day 1 has about 18 photos ...

[Mad Aussie]

DAY 1 - BRISBANE to PERTH

We'd had a lot of rain and flooding in our area in the week before we left. Takeoff was in wet and miserable weather.


In a few minutes though we were high above the weather and heading west


Rural farmland


Slowly the scene was changing from the greens and browns of farmland to the reddish Australian outback


The outback from the plane window


more shortly ...

[Mad Aussie]

The harshnest of the desert


Sand dunes for miles.
I have a friend who is currently cycling down there somewhere. He is doing a 7500 km cycling trek through 10 of Australia's deserts for charity. Russel will have climbed over 2000 sand dunes by the time he finishes this amazing and never before attempted journey. A link to Russel's website/blog we built him is here for those interested http://www.adventuruss.com/


The desert has many patterns


Lake Eyre is a large salt lake that very rarely has water. It has been used as Australia's answer to the Bonniville Salt Flats and also is the site of land speed records. Recently though, Lake Eyre got rain and people are flooding there to see this once or twice lifetime opportunity.











more shortly ...

[Mad Aussie]

Back over red desert. We were flying over this sort of terrain for hours.





As we got closer to the WA coast the clouds began their build up. Perth and the south west corner of the state had also had a week of heavy rain.





This was very cool! I looked down and saw the 737's shadow showing in a halo on the cloud below. Glimpses of the land still visible between the clouds.


Flaps down. "The captain would like to remind everyone that the seat belts sign is now illuminated and all passengers should have their seats in the upright position, trays fastened, all cabin baggage stowed away in the overhead lockers or under your feet. Please keep your barf-bags at the ready cause I land like a New York cabbie but care less about what you think.
Thank you for flying with Qantas, if you survive the landing please consider taking your life in our hands again!"
I joke ... they were great.


That's it for Day 1 folks. We travelled by car down the coastline to Bunbury and did a short amount of local site seeing to get a feel of where we were before heading to our home for the week and enjoying a nice home cooked meal.

[AntZ]

Cool shots. I don't think I have done a flight with a decent camera....or a clean window. Only ever been to WA once and it was for work. Looking forward to seeing WA through your lens.

[Greg_Nuspel]

We have West Jet here where joking is part of the customer service. They are a no frills airline and I can remember once when a new passenger was asking one of the employees if they needed to bring snacks on board. He looked her over and replied; "Yes we don't supply those and by the way where is you lawn chair or are you planning to stand the whole flight".

BTW I think Qantas still has the best safety record of all airlines.

[Mad Aussie]

We have West Jet here where joking is part of the customer service. They are a no frills airline and I can remember once when a new passenger was asking one of the employees if they needed to bring snacks on board. He looked her over and replied; "Yes we don't supply those and by the way where is you lawn chair or are you planning to stand the whole flight".

BTW I think Qantas still has the best safety record of all airlines.

I think that's still correct yes. Although you don't hear about the various mechanical issues they have I guess as we do.
We usually fly Virgin Blue here due to the better pricing but this was a long flight so a bit extra was worth it I guess.

West Jet sound like a load of fun


Cheers also AntZ ... mostly through my wide angle as that's my new toy so I figured I might as well learn to use it.

[Barefoot]

This is gonna be fun. Some of the best wing shots I've seen.

I can understand the need, but I'm still amazed at the size of the tires on Russel's bike. Must take a lot of energy just to move them on good terrain.

[Mad Aussie]

This is gonna be fun. Some of the best wing shots I've seen.

I can understand the need, but I'm still amazed at the size of the tires on Russel's bike. Must take a lot of energy just to move them on good terrain.

Thanks BF.

Russel is amazing. Accomplished Mountaineer, winner of 24hr mountain bike events, done 'hauling' (I think it's called??) in Alaska where you drag your supplies behind you while you trek through snow, already ridden from Perth to Gold Coast (just south of Brisbane) on a mountain bike for charity. Amazingly nice guy. And single too girls

[Mad Aussie]

DAY 2 - Bunbury town and Bird Sanctuary

Before we got into the traveling around we took and easy day to just kick back, do some food shopping and have a look around the town that would be our home for the holiday.

The first three shots here are taken from a lookout very late on Day 1 (on our way from the airport) and the rest are at a bird sanctuary in Bunbury.

Most of the birds are Australian although a few are not. Most of the shots are either from in Averies, or birds freely wandering around the grounds. A few, sadly, are in cages that I felt were too small for some birds.

Anyhow ... enjoy some colourful feathered friends who loved landing on us, picking and pulling at Leanne's ear rings or trying to undo our camera bags.