My position as of this posting is YSBK (Sydney, Australia)
I’ve traveled a total of 19,892 nm
I’ve burned a total of 1,828 gallons of fuel
I’ve flown a total of 113.0 hours
My next destination is Lord Howe Island
As of this blog posting, I’m officially “Down Under” in Australia. I’m really pleased that I elected to take the long way around the world and head down to Australia prior to heading home. It would have been easy to just continue my eastward journey from India across to China etc. But this trip hasn’t been about what is the easiest or the fastest. If it were, I would have just continued flying east when I hit the Nordics across Russia. I would have been home by now. Again, this trip is about fun….it is about learning and it is about my own adventure.
Now, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking at the Australian Continent and specifically how I wanted to tackle it. My journeys over the next several days will take me south across the Australian outback. If you look at the map. Find Darwin to the north and draw a semi-straight line somewhat southeast to Melbourne. I then plan to fly down to Tasmania from Melbourne and then back up towards Sydney. If doable, I plan to continue up the coastline and then head east to Lord Howe Island then on to New Zealand. I need to research this further as I’m really starting the doubt whether the Carenado Mooney has the range to make it from Lord Howe Island to New Zealand without having to swim and I know those waters are shark infested. 
But I have an idea and I have plenty of time to put it in place.
My point of entry to Australia was the city of Darwin and YPDN airport. From Darwin I flew south to Tennant Creek, YTNK then continued on south through the Australian Outback to Alice Springs,YBAS. Alice Springs is very much the outback oasis and pretty much the largest city since Darwin.
Flying over Alice Springs, Australia just before landing for fuel at YBAS
From Alice Springs, I continued south to Coober Pedy, YCBP and then on to Port Augusta, YPAG. I then headed southeast over to Horsham, YHSM which would set me up to fly down to Tasmania and YDPO and Devonport, Tasmania.
Short final to YDPO, Devonport Tasmania.
From Devonport, Tasmania I decided to fly on to Sydney and will use the smaller GA airport of Bankstown, YSBK. I really love the smaller GA airports compared to their larger international counterparts. When flying in my Mooney, I find my taxi time to and from the active runway to be much, much shorter and the traffic is somewhat lighter. Of course this can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. I certainly like to have a little traffic both in the air and on the ground.
Sydney is truly a beautiful city depicted in FSX. Oh…I did elect to wait on purchasing the Orbx add-on scenery for Australia. I will certainly return to Australia and spend some time touring more of this beautiful country. Today’s weather in Sydney was cloudy and raining, but I did manage to spend about 20 minutes flying over the city and checking out all the notable landmarks like the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge from right side.
Short final for runway 11L at YSBK in Sydney.
I’ll spend a few days in Sydney before departing for Lord Howe Island. Lord Howe Island airport (YLHI) is approx. 323 nm northeast of Sydney and certainly doable in the Mooney. However, from YLHI to New Zealand is outside the range. But I can fly 486 nm northeast to Norfolk Island Airport (YSNF) then fly 460 nm south to Kaitaia, New Zealand (NZKT).
Once in New Zealand, I plan to fly south to at least Christchurch (and perhaps further south), but at some point I’ll turn and head back north back to Norfolk Island. Once there I have a couple of different options. I can proceed back to Australia via Lord Howe Island, or continue island hopping up to Noumea and just continue hopping from island to island on up to Papua New Guinea. From PNG I’ll continue northwest to the Philippines, Taiwan, mainland China and Japan.
Speaking of island hopping. I’m researching how I’ll cross from Asia to North America. I’m looking closely at the Aleutian Islands as a way to cross over. I will continue to research this option as I’m still a few weeks away.
Until next time,
Jerry