The trip up the coast from Bundy was a quick one with 20 to 30 knot winds on the tail.
My little R22 managed to peak at 120 knots over the ground and was consistently over 100 the whole leg. I doubt it's ever been that fast before!
Gladstone was our first waypoint.
When we got to Rockhampton we got advance warning that the weather at Hamilton was very bad. Winds gusting to 35 knots with a constant 30 knots, lots of rain and low cloud all meant that Hamilton was out. Mackay was about the same as Rocky. That is, relatively high cloud strong winds but should be do-able. Of course the question was what about after Mackay? Would we be stuck there?
Half the group felt it was reasonable to push on, the other half felt it was better to go west and avoid it all. The group split and half went north and half went west.
However the weather turned worse rapidly and the northern group ran into deteriorating weather.
The half who went west were joined by one of the northern group who was unable to get into Mackay and had diverted. The rest managed to get into Mackay with difficulty.
The western contingent flew to Emerald then Clermont in blue sky, dry weather and far less stress.
