Run the Runways 2020: My Version
Over the past 9 months, I’ve been seeing many people in my LinkedIn feed, let’s say, transitioning out of the airport/aviation industry. That’s a nice way of describing what must be a pretty tough time for either you or many of our colleagues. I feel very lucky that I still have a job in the industry that I love.
For my UK readers, a group called Aviation Action was created to help those dealing with these challenges. For the month of December, they are holding a “Run the Runways” event to raise money for their support programs. It’s a great cause.
But most of my blog readers do not come from the UK, so I wanted to put a personal spin on the idea and highlight a, somewhat, personal cause.
For my “Run the Runways” challenge, I’ve created my own December calendar and populated it with a bunch of runways that are familiar to me. Most of them are in Australia and many of them I’ve walked on, driven down, or flown from and some others that I’ve worked with or for their operators. Each day this month, I will be running the equivalent distance of these runway lengths and posting a little story about my interaction with or work at that airport.
As for a cause, I’m not going to ask for money.
Instead, I would like to highlight the plight of a bunch of Australians and I hope my other Aussie friends and colleague might help spread the word and maybe even take a little action.
The issue is that there are over 35,000 stranded Australians at the moment that can’t get home due to arrivals restrictions. These Aussies are mostly expats who were advised in March to stay where they were and follow local guidelines and restrictions. And this what I did with my family.
But for many Australian expats, their circumstances changed drastically when redundancies were announced or family issues back home surfaced. Many have lost their jobs and as such they lost visas, accommodation and education support for their families.
In July, all Australian states introduced arrival caps in an effort to help them manage those coming to Australia. The knock-on effect is that airlines are severely restricted on how many people they can put of their aircraft, this inflates prices significantly and causes a great deal of uncertainty with Aussies and their families getting bumped from flights over and over again. The result is a lot of stress as savings dwindle, couch surfing options dissipate and the fatigue sets in.
That was nearly five months ago and the struggle for many Aussies overseas has outpaced the action by the Australian Government. This is not a political statement – just describing some of the battles our fellow Aussies are facing. Yes, caps have risen slightly. Yes, some locations have or will be receiving repatriation flights but Aussies were promised that the Government would let them come home by Xmas. Under scrutiny, that promise turned into out to be that only a couple thousand vulnerable Aussies would be home by Xmas.
Unfortunately, even that number grows daily.
I’m not a stranded Aussie. My family and I made the decision for them to return in May so that our kids could return to some form of normality. I would love to visit for Xmas but I would hate to think that, if I was lucky enough to get a seat home, that I would displacing someone who really needs it.
I, personally, would love to see the caps lifted to a level that flights would be profitable for airlines and this would lead to reasonable fares and confidence in scheduled flights departing. I think hotel quarantine is an essential part of protecting Australia and I have no issue with those returning having to pay for it.
So, please keep our mates in your thoughts and if you find yourself wanting to communicate with your local state or federal member or senators, why not let them know that you think Aussie doing it tough overseas should be allowed to come home as quickly as possible.
But for me, I’ve got a bit of free time during December and I’m not going anywhere. So, I am going to run some runways, well sort of, and try to take care of myself as best as I can during this time of year.
I wish you all the best, happy holidays and a safe New Year.
Daily Updates
Day 1: Alice Springs
Way back in 2008, I ran one of my last Aerodrome Reporting Officer training courses at Alice Springs. I spent a good couple of days with the team out there. While driving around during one of the assessment sessions I noticed that they had an old school surveyed Aerodrome Reference Point (ARP) marker. This one was even in a covered concrete pit to minimise the potential for disturbance. We stopped so that I could nerd out a little and as I lifted the small lid, I had a moment’s thought about what might be lurking within the pit.
I should have listened to that thought as it would have saved me from the near heart attack I had when I spotted the centipede. After the initial shock and my heart beat returning to normal, I noticed that the centipede was dead, phew!
I didn’t break any records this morning on my run but set a relatively leisurely pace of about 9.5 km/h before ramping it up a bit at the end.
One day down, thirty to go.
Photo by John E. Hill
Day 2: Townsville
Townsville is a bustling and exciting airport with some unusual features on its runway. As a joint-user facility, the civilian airport shares the runway with the Royal Australian Air Force and Australian Army Aviation Corps. As such, the runway has extremely large “turning nodes” at each end (they’re not for turning), distance to run markers and arresting gear about 450m from each end (marked by yellow discs).
It’s ladies day at my gym, so I ran Townsille’s runway around my block. Luckily, the weather is cooler this time of year. Despite not having a machine set my pace for me, I managed a better pace than yesterday. By pure coincidence, yesterday’s runway and today’s runway were exactly the same length - 2438m.
Day 3: Moranbah
The little house icon denotes that this airport was somewhat of a home airport for me. In fact, Moranbah would be the most I have felt at home of any airport. I worked there for three and half years. I met a lot of great people there and I walked this runway more than a few times.
I spent quite a bit of time out on the runway one morning after a storm had passed through the area and decided to blow about fifteen holes in the runway surface. Of course, it was one of our busy mornings and we needed to fix the runway as quickly as possible. We didn’t have many options but we did have some quick dry cement. I was sceptical that the concrete plugs would hold, so we put in place a pretty intense inspection regime for the rest of the week and then slightly eased it for a while longer.
They never moved. They were eventually covered over by a treatment seal and I think they may have been milled out by a more substantial overlay since I left. Not bad for a fifteen minute repair job.
But it is a short runway, relatively speaking, so I pushed the pace a little today. Well, pushed it for 40 year old me and finished in nine minutes.
Day 4: Redcliffe
Although I put the little house icon on this aerodrome, this one wasn’t really a home aerodrome for me. I lived nearby, audited it a couple of times and would have loved to do a bit of flying there but couldn’t find the time with three very young kids. It think it is in a pretty cool spot in the northern suburbs of Brisbane and I am sure I will visit there again when I get to go back to Australia when arrival caps are lifted.
As a short runway, I smashed this morning’s run out in less than five minutes but continued on with my usual workout afterwards. Most of my runways will be run at my new gym which has a pretty cool view.
I scheduled a shorter run for today as this evening I am volunteering as a Scout Leader and I’ve organised a camp cookout in the desert for a bunch of kids.
Day 5: Sydney
I’m not sure why I didn’t put a little house icon next to Sydney. I did live nearby for a little over a year but, I guess, at the time, I didn’t have anything to do with the international airport. I worked out at Bankstown Airport. Much, much later, I did do a special Safety Management System (SMS) audit of Sydney airport. One of my favourite colleagues from CASA and I spent a week combing through the airport’s safety systems. It was the last audit I did with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Back to when I used to live in Sydney, I would spend a bit of time plane watching and taking photos. The photo on my About Me page is one of my favourites and shows an aircraft on approach to runway 16L. Here are a few others.
Given today was a relatively longer run, I paced myself a little more modestly today. I was aiming for consistency. I completed the approx four kilometres in just under thirty minutes.
Day 6: Jandakot
So, this airport also has a little house icon as I lived nearby and it also has a little aircraft icon because I learnt to fly here. I spent quite a few hours buzzing around in the circuit at Jandakot, mixing with professional pilots, other trainee pilots and a few pilots in need of some more training. I also provided a few services to the operator of Jandakot airport including training and take-off surveys.
But going back to the flying thing for a moment, this was also the airport where I subjected a few relatives to my piloting skills and I am happy to report that all were returned to the ground in nearly the same condition as when they left. Some even enjoyed it, like this little guy.
The strange thing about today’s run however is that I haven’t ever seen this 1508m long runway 12/30. When I left Perth, runway 06L/24R was the longest runway and runway 12/30 was only 990 metres. But I thought it would be better to run the current longest runway. I spoke to my son just before today’s run and he expected me to sprint the distance. He and his brother probably could. Oh, to be young again!
Day 7: Walgett
This one might seem a bit out of left field but the inclusion of Walgett is pretty simple - this was the first aerodrome I audited as an aerodrome inspector. I drove over ten hours from Brisbane to audit the, then registered, aerodrome and its sister aerodrome, Lightning Ridge. It was a good first solo outing despite the long drives.
One week down and 14.3 kilometres run. Sore legs but no regrets.
Day 8: Paraburdoo
I spent around a week at Paraburdoo in 2007 (I think) filling in as airport manager. At the end of the week, I had a couple of aerodrome inspections at some nearby airstrips which, as was normal for me at the time, I flew to myself. While I was doing these inspections, my colleagues were resurfacing the Paraburdoo runway.
My return leg had perfect timing and I was the very first aircraft to land on the brand new runway surface. And as a recently resealed runway, it was practically void of runway markings. It did have a centreline (as per the standards) but it was missing the piano keys, numbers, touchdown zone, etc. It was a strange experience to land on that enormous (45 metres wide), dark black, and smooth surface.
Week 1 Totals
Day 9: Jakarta
I was lucky enough to travel to Jakarta twice with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority as part of the Indonesian Transport Safety Assistance Package (ITSAP). I wrote two blog posts about the training and workshops I delivered there. The first was on Safety Management Systems for aerodrome regulatory staff and managers and we used low-visibility operations as our key case study. The second trip was for aerodrome and air traffic services regulatory staff on safety performance indicators.
I loved both trips to Jakarta and thanks to some fortuitous timing, I found myself with a long weekend to explore the city on both trips. I got to see the zoo, the old port, the national monument and Taman Mini, which was like travelling through all of Indonesia’s regions in a couple of hours.
The runway at Jakarta is one of the longer runways in my calendar and, again, its ladies day at the gym, so I ran this out in the streets of Doha. This is the best time of year for running outside and, if you can believe, I finished near to sunset and started walking home and even, for a moment, felt cold :o.
Day 10: Mount Gambier
I have been to Mount Gambier twice, both times to run training courses. The first time I had some other work in South Australia and the second time was just a quick trip direct to Mount Gambier. On that second trip, do you think I flew into Adelaide and drove down?
Nope, Melbourne is actually closer to Mount Gambier. So, we flew into Melbourne and drove across instead. I say “we” as on both occasions, I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my family. We liked the town, the region and the airport has a long history.
Today’s run was a bit easier but I combined it with “leg day”, so I’m a little sore at the moment.
Day 11: Balgo Hill
I feel very lucky to have seen a lot of Australia. I’ve been to every capital city, nearly every regional city or major town and lots of small towns and random specks on maps. I also feel a particular privilege having travelled to many indigenous communities. They are intriguing and confronting places to visit and many in the most amazing environments Australia has to offer.
One such place is Balgo Hill. It’s a long way from any where (or everywhere) but the land is amazing. Picture old western movies set in remote Arizona desert with towering cliffs dotted through vast valleys. This is pretty much the view from the end of the runway at Balgo Hill. Unfortuantely, I didn’t have a camera with me at the end of the runway.
Another relatively short run today and I figured out that my watch and the treadmill are out by about 10%. I have been and will continue to use my watch as the “official” record as it is the more conservative total.
Well, I don’t have time to miss the desert today, as I am heading out into a different type of desert for some more camp cooking with the Scouts.
Day 12: Coffs Harbour
I mentioned a couple of days ago that Walgett was the first aerodrome audit I did as an aerodrome inspector. Well, it was a registered aerodrome and only took a day and an evening. My first certified aerodrome audit was the beautiful Coffs Harbour Airport.
What I remember most about that audit was attitude of the aerodrome operator. Instead of hiding issues, the airport’s management were very open and we were able to use the audit to push for some resolution. It involved findings and further assessments and corrective action plans and so on. But all that was easy as the operator and the regulator were on the same page. Oh, I wish every audit could be like that.
I ticked over another two kilometres today and I’m about to apply some Deep Heat to help me get to sleep. And all that sounds pathetic when you compare my running to the guy in the UK that ran all 31 runways in one day!
Day 13: Broome
The north-west of Australia is an extremely interesting place. It is rugged, wild, beautiful and a long way from anywhere else. Broome sits on gorgeous turquoise waters, it has its own architecture and even its own time system. I’ve been to Broome a few times and provided training for the aerodrome operator and some nearby aerodromes.
I really miss a west-coast sunset.
Broome’s runway is a little longer than some of my recent runs, so I was hurting a little today and I’ve got a bit a work in front of me to get my pace down. I did get a little bonus today - a practice airshow from the QEAF preparing for National Day on Friday.
Day 14: Norseman
This is one of the most interesting runways I have ever been on. The whole aerodrome actually a (mostly) dry salt lake bed. It is stark white with, at the time, black-banded cone markers. I went there with a colleague to conduct an aerodrome survey and the job was going really well until I bogged the ute. I don’t have pictures from all the aerodromes I’ve been to but of this, I have pictures…
Week 2’s runs & overall totals
Lucky for my legs, today was a short run - pretty good pace though, sub 6 min/km. Second week of runways done and I have managed to get my average pace down a little.
I’m not sure how I am going to go with some of the big runways ahead on me.
Day 15: Brisbane
So, I’m halfway through the month and it seems fitting that I “ran” another home runway. Fitting because this is where my family is now and due to Australia’s arrival limits, I can’t come back to visit them.
Well, I’m trying to look on the bright side and I’m glad to have a job and a place to stay. Since starting this challenge, I’ve seen more LinkedIn connections change their status or write farewell posts.
And I’ve seen plenty more stories from my fellow expat Aussies stranded abroad as they suffer through more flight cancellations and other trying circumstances.
The daily run and gym visit keeps my sane as does the video call with my family in Brisbane
While I worked for CASA, their office was “on” Brisbane Airport and just over the road from the airport operator’s offices. I had the occasional airside visit but at the time, the parallel runway was still on the drawing board. Just before I left, they had started reclamation works but the sand had to settle for a couple of years and the new runway seemed a lifetime away. I wrote an article about it for another website.
Well, its here now and while the heat is out of our industry for the time being, I’m sure that Brisbane Airport will be happy with their extra black stuff when something closer to normal returns.
The longer run today hurt my average pace a little. I should have pushed the treadmill up a bit due to the difference between it and my watch. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll catch it up by the end of the month.
Day 16: Whyalla
I wrote about Norseman the other day and I failed to mention on here that it is at the western end of the Eyre Highway and despite living in “The West” for a couple of years, I have never driven the Nullarbor. Whyalla is the furthest west from the east coast that I have driven. Not all in one trip, mind you, but I can trace multiple car trips from Cairns down through Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and then into South Australia stopping at Whyalla.
And then once in Western Australia, I picked up the driving (lots of driving) again.
Dan’s Road Trips
It’s Women’s Wednesday at the gym again, so I hit the outside pavement today for a short run(way). And while I pushed the pace a little today, the run wasn’t long enough to have much of an impact on my averages.
Day 17: Mackay
Mackay used to be the big city for me and my family. It was a two-hour drive there and another two-hours back. It was the place we went to for “serious” shopping, to go to see movies and for emergency medial care. I also did a couple of audits there before we moved to central Queensland.
The last time I flew in there, I flew out about 30 minutes later. It was after over 30 hours of travel from Athens to Moranbah. We were on final approach into Moranbah, I even saw my home out the window, before we went around and diverted to Mackay. It was a side trip my wife and I didn't need. It was a long couple of days.
I really pushed the pace on today’s slightly longer run. I was definitely puffed by the end of the run and I’m hoping I can keep this up.
Day 18: Northern Peninsula
As the name suggests, this aerodrome is in the north - the very north of mainland Australia. It’s way up the top of the pointy bit of Australia. When I was there, this aerodrome was called Bamaga but this is the name of only one of the communities it serves. Each of these communities has its own history and it made sense to give the aerodrome a more general identity.
I ran a training course for locals and nearby community aerodrome staff about 13 years ago. It was an interesting bunch of people - a couple of young blokes from Palm Island, some experienced staff from Aurukun and even the pilot, who had flown around to pick these guys up, sat in on the course.
The north of Australia is also littered with WWII aircraft wreckage and not too far from Northern Peninsula, one can find this very old wreck. It is a DC-3 (my favourite aircraft) that crashed on 5th May 1945 while on its way to PNG. It looks like all on board died.
Day 19: Meekatharra
Let me tell you about the unnecessary freak out I had during a training course I was running in Meeka. I had flown myself in the day before in a light aircraft, got a good night’s sleep and kicked off the aerodrome reporting officer training course without a problem.
In the early afternoon, we got to the spot where we discuss the aerodrome’s AIP/ERSA information. In this session, I would hand out copies of the aerodrome’s ERSA entry, printed off the Internet, for the participants to familiarise themselves with it. Having flown the aerodrome the day before, I thought I was across everything in their entry.
I posed questions about the aerodrome and the participants located the information and called out the answer. I asked the course about the CTAF (common radio frequency) and the participants answered…
“126.55”
To which I responded, “ah, no. It’s 126.7*”. This being the frequency I had used the day before.
I condescendingly suggested they locate the letters, CTAF and asked again…
“126.55”
“Sorry, no. Where are you guys looking?”
I leaned over the shoulder of one of the participants and they pointed to the correct area and it did, indeed, say “126.55”.
My stomach instantly dropped. Did I fly into an aerodrome on the wrong frequency and put myself in serious danger?
I rushed to my flight bag and pulled out my copy of ERSA. Flipped to Meekatharra and slid my finger down to CTAF, “126.7”
To cut to the chase, I had printed out the next issue of ERSA which was to become current during the training course and my printed copy was current for the inbound flight. So, we were all right, in a weird way.
I wasn’t too happy with the decision (not the aerodrome operator’s decision) to change the frequency as part of an ERSA entry update. From memory, it did lead to a few aircraft operating on different frequencies. I thought it would have been better to introduce via a NOTAM and a few years later, when I was responsible for a similar decision, I made sure a NOTAM went out.
* I can’t quite remember if it was 126.7 but it was something like that.
This was actually this trip to Meekatharra.
Day 20: Kalbarri
This is also a flying story and one that involves Meekatharra too. I was on a flying trip up through central Western Australia visiting a few aerodromes to complete take-off surveys and other technical inspections. I also roped in my brother to be my survey assistant for the trip.
Our first stop was Golden Grove mine site. The flight and job went fine but the forecast for our departure and flight to Kalbarri was not looking good. You may not know this but the mid-west coast of WA get some pretty strong winds from time to time or a lot of the time. It can cause the trees to grow in weird ways.
So, we wake up and find the weather reports with something like a 50-knot headwind. With the fuel we had left after our first leg from Perth, we couldn’t make it. Likewise, we couldn’t make it to Geraldton, where there was fuel available. So, what to do?
I didn’t really want to delay as we had about five more surveys/inspections lined up and no real fat in our schedule. I looked around for other fuel stops and the only other choice was Meekatharra, about the same distance away.
But with the wind!
I did some calculations and found that we could easily make it to Meeka, fill up and then plod our way, against the wind, back towards Kalbarri. Instead of a leisurely 150 nautical mile flight and a chill by the ocean for the rest of the day, we had to fly 390 nautical miles in total and a lot of that was with an agonisingly low ground speed.
It was a long day but we got there in the end. We spent the night, did our survey, fuelled up the aircraft again and then headed off to Carnarvon.
I’ve read that a few people doing this challenge have been impacted by injuries and I have to admit that I’m feeling a little fatigued in the legs but we’re essentially two thirds of the way through!
Day 21: Kalgoorlie-Boulder
I have a confession, in two ways. Firstly, I haven’t work at, for or with the good folks at the Kalgoorlie-Boulder aerodrome. But I flew myself in their once and that is my second confession - the worst landing I have ever made.
As I have mentioned on a few of the other days in this post, I used to fly myself around Western Australia, jumping from aerodrome to aerodrome conducting inspections and running training courses and so on. Most of these trips we planned weeks in advance and that gave me time to plan and even rehearse my flights.
On this occasion, I didn’t get my usual planning time. My colleague had called and needed me to come out to the WA gold fields for something, I can’t remember what. I think I had a day’s notice and the forecast wasn’t looking great. Again, I was flying into a headwind, this time an easterly, and intermediate stop looked like it would be necessary.
I did all my flight planning including my diversion points and alternates. I was holding Kalgoorlie as a alternate fuel stop in case the headwinds kept me from getting to my destination in one hop. I had a good plan and I took off from Jandakot, heading east.
I became obvious pretty quickly that a stop in Kalgoorlie was necessary, so I tracked direct. As I was approaching, say ten nautical miles out, I identified that I could do a straight-in approach. It would be my first one. I made the necessary corrections to my track and spotted the runway.
As I crossed the fence, I realised that my gear and flaps were still up and that I was about 20 knots too fast. But I didn’t go around.
I dropped everything and tried to wash off the speed. It didn’t work.
Week 3’s runs & overall totals
I hit the runway and bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced.
I probably still could have safely gone around on the third bounce. Lucky for me the runway had plenty of length for my aircraft and I didn’t over correct or let the aircraft runaway any further from me.
I taxied to the fuel bowser, got out of the aircraft and almost fell over. My legs were shaking and it took some time for me to calm down. I still had another hour or so to fly to my destination.
I obviously lived to fly another day but I feel like I learnt a lot of lessons that day. The biggest being that you should never underestimate the power of routine and how much you don’t know when you deviate from it. I hadn’t appreciated how much of my aircraft’s configuration and speed was managed through the circuit pattern. The behaviours that had been drilled into were contingent on approaching the aerodrome in a certain way. More routines and more diverse patterns of behaviour often only come with more experience.
It’s the end of the third week of running and I’ve been able to pull down the average pace close to six minutes. I hope I can keep this up.
Day 22: Gove (Nhulunbuy)
A long time ago, I was up in Arnhem Land to deliver an aerodrome reporting officer training course to some remote indigenous community airstrip staff. They drove in to town for the training course which was a pretty informal one-day affair. The government-funded course didn’t have a big turnout but they were a mixed bunch. I had white community manager, a white engineering worker, a young indigenous man and a much more senior indigenous gentleman.
The course was going great with some good discussion but I wasn’t getting much feedback from the older indigenous gentleman. Now, by this time, I had been to plenty of communities and I had a fairly good understanding of communication within the Indigenous Australian culture. I wasn’t expecting him to constantly chiming in with answers to my questions but while he was appeared attentive, I kept feeling like something was missing.
So, I pushed a little harder and asked a direct question of this gentleman. Probably a little “forceful” but I just wanted to check to see if we were on the same page. I didn’t get any response.
The young guy picked up on this and turned to the elder and spoke in their language. Boom! He came to life. Then the young guy explained that his English wasn’t great but he’d been following along with the pictures. The young guy continued to translate for me when needed and, overall, I think the course went pretty well in the end.
After the course, I went for a bit of a walk out near the town lagoon. I gave the water a wide berth after I saw this.
That’s a croc trap.
Day 23: Gold Coast
What a lovely spot! Well, most of the time. Last week, my family had a little vacation there and were confined to their hotel due to torrential rain and localised flooding but normally, honestly, it is beautiful.
Work-wise, I’ve audited the aerodrome a couple of times and worked on various things like obstacle approvals. All fairly run of the mill, really. The night life up at Surfer’s Paradise is much more interesting ;).
As today was, again, Ladies’ Day at the gym but I didn’t want to just run around my dusty streets. So, I headed out to Aspire Park for some greenery. It’s a nice place for running with kilometres of soft-fall rubber to run on.
Plenty of sunshine but this is NOT the Gold Coast
Day 24: Esperance
When you are in Norseman, either after driving the Nullarbor or you’re there for work, and you’re heading for Perth, you have a choice to go north towards Coolgardie or south towards Esperance. Now, your GPS is going to tell you to go north. Yes, you will get there quicker but you’ll miss the south coast of WA and that would be a shame.
I ran a training course is Esperance and had my very young family with me for the trip. It is a great little town but I really wish the aerodrome was closer to it. From there you can continue along the south coast and check out Hopetoun and Albany. It’s a beautiful drive.
Deliberately, today’s runway was a bit shorter. Something of a warm up for tomorrow…
Day 25: Doha
The big one. I saved the longest runway I’ve been on for Xmas day so that I could enjoy, somewhat guilt free, a slice of cheesecake. But also saved it for today because, it’s Xmas and I am a very long way away from my family. The last 7 months have been tough, this month, more so and today, especially, rough.
I do want to congratulate Aviation Action for this challenge. They have done a great job raising money for their support programs. They busted their initial goal and there is still time to help them raise even more. If you’re in the UK, please check them out.
I also want to thank them for the challenge itself. Getting out and running, whether in the gym, on the street or, for today, on the Corniche, has been great for my mental health.
But, again, I do feel lucky to still have a job and I would love to have travelled back to Australia for the holidays but with over 30,000 of my fellow Aussies needing to get back to Australia, I didn’t want to get in their way. The Australian Government, the only one in the world to do this to its own citizens, has made it virtually impossible to do this with any confidence.
Despite Australia’s apathy and selfishness, Aviation Action’s compassion and empathy has been bright light over the past few weeks.
I was very worried that the length of today’s run would result in an increase on my average pace and over the first couple of kilometres, it was hard because today, I had to deal with a head-wind (at least for most of the run). But I pushed through and finished just on my pace goal. Phew!
Day 26: Saibai Island
Saibai Island’s runway appears to be the closest Australian runway to a foreign country. If one flies an extended downwind leg for runway 12, you would probably find yourself in PNG airspace. The island is part of the Torres Strait Islands which are dotted in the “narrow” gap between the tip of Cape York and the south coast of Papua New Guinea.
I dropped into Saibai Island for a quick audit back when I was an aerodrome inspector with CASA. We flew out of Horn Island in a light aircraft and headed about as far north as Australia goes. There are a real mix of islands in the strait - big, small, mountainous, flat, rocky, sandy - and they are all surrounded by the beautiful waters of the Arafura Sea.
Today was my shortest runway to help cool down from yesterday’s long run and yesterday’s Xmas cheesecake blowout, don’t ask. I did try to run it as fast as I could but couldn’t crack five minutes per kilometre on the pace. I guess I am not as young as I used to be.
Day 27: Karratha
Back when I was a semi-regular visitor to WA’s north west, the runway at Karratha looked a little different. It was one of the few runways in WA with a declared stopway. Also, if you look at the Google Maps view of the airport, you might notice something unusual about the parallel taxiway.
It was, then, being built up and since then, has been used as a runway to complete a reconstruction (I think) and lengthening of the main runway. I wasn’t there for the final project but it looks like they pulled it off without any major issues.
It was also on a flight out of Karratha that I was once “accused” of being an air marshal. The poor bloke was extremely nervous and nearly had a fit when we banked quickly after take-off.
Day 28: Halls Creek
This little place in far north WA holds interesting bookends to a very important phase of my career. I was in Halls Creek when I first participated in an Aerodrome Reporting Officer (ARO) training course and the last place I ran a full ARO course. It was an exciting period of my airport career so far and training is something I really miss. In two short years, I think I trained something like 200-300 people in aerodrome safety inspections, NOTAMs and works safety supervision.
It was also my first real introduction to the circumstances in which many Indigenous Australians live. An eye-opening experience that has been a strong line through subsequent work and something I hope to return to one day.
Also also, it was the first place I ate kangaroo meat. For any non-Aussie reading this, yes, we eat our national animal and yes, it is delicious.
Now, it is the end of the fourth week of this challenge but I’m going to save the stats recap for the end of the month. I’m feeling good about my little pace goal I set earlier in the month with only three runways to go.
Day 29: Croker Island
Croker Island sits just off the coast of mainland Australia north of Darwin. It is on the boundary between the Arafura and Timor Seas. It’s a large island and the drive from the aerodrome to the main town goes through an amazingly beautiful wetland.
The main town was once a mission that became home to children of the Stolen Generation. One of them told me some stories of travelling later in life to find his people on the mainland.
To get out to Croker Island, I chartered a light aircraft and normally such a flight wouldn’t be a problem for me but I was recovering from a vicious virus. I had flown in to the Territory the day before and spent nearly 24 hours asleep. I pulled it together for the training course I was running on the island but that flight and my subsequent trips to MacArthur River Mine, Gove and Kununurra were pretty tough.
We’re on the home stretch now. Two days to go of the challenge. Two days left in the year that was 2020. Luckily, not just two days left in my little holiday break.
Day 30: Queenstown
At dinner one night when we lived in the Aussie bush, my young, red-headed son expressed his frustration at not being allowed to play outside during the middle of the day. His mother and I promised that our next move would be to the snow. We had no plans exactly. In fact, we had no real idea about how to make that promise happen. But somehow, a couple of years later, we moved him and the rest of the family to the New Zealand, winter resort town of Queenstown.
Queenstown Airport regularly graces Internet listicles of the worlds most beautiful airports. And it earns its place. The mountains, the ski-fields, the excitement, the adventure and the scenery - Queenstown is gorgeous.
And the work was exciting. At the time we were seeing insane traffic growth and everyday there were challenges to get the most out of the infrastructure while giving people a good experience in and out of the resort. Obviously, there was snow, wild winds, crazy incidents, celebrities and, at all times, a great team.
Day 31: Rockhampton
Happy New Year!
My last runway for the month and for the challenge is the main runway at Rockhampton. Rocky is a pretty interesting airport. It’s fairly busy for a regional airport and it sees some annual international air traffic when the Singaporean military comes down for exercises in a nearby training area. These annual exercise usually involve transporting helicopters in and they operate primarily from the secondary runway.
So, was I able to bring my average pace to below six minutes per kilometre for the full month?
Well, despite my sluggish start to the month, I was successful in meeting my goal! Check it out below.
The full month’s stats
It was a tough month and I am certain that if I didn’t have this challenge to keep me somewhat sane, I might have spiralled a bit. Australia is having a little outbreak at the moment and the people there are looking for other people to blame. They seem to be pointing the finger at Abandoned Australians.
Fingers crossed for 2021 bringing some relief on the COVID front and some easing on Australian arrival restrictions. Regardless, all the best to anyone reading this in early 2021. I hope you have a good year and by good, I mean in absolute terms.
Header image credit: João Cabral (via Pexels)
