Day One(a) - Cape York Peninsula
Five of the group began the tour on the Friday and made our first stop at Musgrave Station. We arrived with some fanfare. Garrick showed the locals how much dust an R44 could throw up and Martin showed how many go arounds an aircraft can do before it gets tired of it and lands regardless.
No sooner had we landed than we noticed the local population of cattle was growing rapidly. They were roaming around the airstrip and parking area and presented a worry. Cattle are very good at finding tail-planes or tail rotors to rub or scratch themselves on and have been known to do lots of damage to parked aircraft.
Our solution was to "circle the wagons" and since we had no damage in the morning we presume it worked!
Chasing Road Trains - The only way to do this trip is by air. The roads are rough, dusty and corrugated.
But once on the ground the aircraft had to be protected from curious cattle who see tail rotors as great scratching posts!
