FINALLY, after much planning, the Round Australia Flight is less than 4 months away!

To check how prepared we are, we’ve taken to the air! Over the next 4 days with many members of the OWC support team, we’ll be warming up & finalising how the team will function on the big trip around Australia.

Over these 4 days –  starting today from Tooradin (Vic) or Griffith (NSW, where most of the support team are from) – we fly west, visiting King Island, Warrnambool, Portland, Kangaroo Island (SA), Murray Bridge, & then back home via Ballarat.

Recently, I must admit the anticipation of flying my single-engine aircraft from Cape Otway to King Island had been causing me a little anxiety. However, fortunately, planes don’t realise they are flying over water – and any issues were just in my head. Today also represented a great achievement for many pilots in our team as they got to experience their first water crossings! With our carefully tightened life jackets on, and making our regular calls to Melbourne Centre so they knew where we were, the 30 min trip over the water was not that bad at all.

Here we are, a proud bunch, at the King Island Airport.

This experience today, left us all feeling a lot better about any future crossings including our one over to Tasmania in the Round Australia Flight that starts 29 April.

After some photo opportunities at the Twelve Apostles, we all arrived safely at our first stopover in Portland.

Tomorrow, we make our way to SA & hope to see some of Kangaroo Island, depending on the bushfires.

More in our blog tomorrow.

Over & out.

Dave.