Kiwirrkurra, 992

Its been a while since my last post, but i havent been flying a whole lot and when i did, i always forgot my camera. But most of the flying was similar routes i had already spoken about. However, there is one routing which i seem to do a lot recently (3 times in a month), and a few people have dubbed me the 'Kiwirrkurra King' at work. Mainly because they think their use of alliteration is linguistic genius. So i will talk about Kiwirrkurra and all its glory. I say this sarcastically, as when one of the nurses that works there saw me taking a few photos, she asked "does Kiwirrkurra really need a photo?" I'll let you be the judge.

Kiwirrkurra is a small community located in remote Western Australia. Its vertically in line with Kununurra where i used to work, and horizontally in line with Alice Springs. Its 345nm which equates to roughly 639km as the crow flys. To drive there takes 8 - 10 hours due to the bad dirt roads. With good winds its about 2 and a bit hours to fly. With bad winds it can take nearly 3 hours to get there. I have only been into the community once and spent about an hour in the school playing soduko and listening to music while a man i had flown out inspected fire damage for insurance reasons.

So its a long flight for a small single engine plane. I have had to go there on charters and also we do a regular mail run on tuesdays called the 992 or Westmail. On the 992 we take the community bags, the Australia post mail, and supplies for the medical centre and store. This can include anything from blood samples to big tins of money. The 992 is the only C210 mailrun where we also take passengers if they book in advance. Im usually lucky and dont get too many. Only twice i have had a full bus, but only in one direction. Its rare you get passengers both ways. This is one of the few runs where taking aboriginals is better as its such a long and bumpy flight in the summer, and generally they are used to the bumps in light aircraft. Most who havent travelled in light planes leave quite a mess, if you catch my drift.

This is a photo of Lake Mackay. This is a big salt lake, which is around 90nm long, in the Great Sandy Desert. That photo actually shows the border between the Northern Territory and Western Australia, somewhere! I have seen water in it once! But it was only for a brief period.

So there isnt too much else to say about Kiwirrkurra. The photos i have taken were when a company plane was at Kiwirrkurra, so it was nice to see a familar face. Kiwirrkurra isnt too bad in the sense that the people who work there are nice and willing to help us out as much as they can. They help us refuel, and make sure our fuel stocks are always kept adequate. One of the blokes who helps me is from Texas out of all places. He is good for a chat. The photo above shows the drum we get avgas from and the pumping device for those who have never refuelled from drums. All the drums at the moment are warped from the intense heat and getting the pump to screw in can be challenging. Coupled with 40 degree heat and lots of flies, it can be very frustrating and annoying.

As usual thanks for reading. This picture above is assorted freight which i brought out. They usually put the outbound mail and freight under the tail of the plane. The other photo shows the beechcraft baron 58. Very nice aeroplane, i did my initial instrument rating in one of those. I hope to fly them for the company soon.