Croker Island

I have been to Croker Island twice in the past three days. Its 120nm from Darwin, which about 80nm is over water! Pretty fun/scary... etc in a single engine plane. I did it in a C206 and a C210. I definately prefer to fly the C210 no question. There are very strong winds at the moment due to TC Olga in the area, and the groundspeed in the C206 on the way back was down to 88kts, and in the C210 it got down to about 110kts.

A view of Melville Island about 40nm north-east of Darwin. This was taken on the C206 at 5500.

On the left hand side you can see a company C206 heading to Croker as well. I cant remember what height he was at!



Croker as per the GPS in the plane. There is lots of military airspace around Darwin (as you can see in the GPS) so its important to check the notams every flight.

Finally Croker Island strip! This is the strip, which i have found out 2 days in a row always has a howling cross wind. The settlement is around 6nm further north-east. An advantage of flying in the top-end is that most of the strips a sealed. This one is an exception to the rule, however they are very well maintained and take a lot of rain.