Grounded in Busso
Thanks to two cold fronts passing over south-west WA in the past fortnight, it has been another week of no flying for me. It has been over 2 weeks now since I flew from White Gum Farm to Bunbury for the first leg of Wing Threads: Flight Around Oz.
Welcome to trike flying everyone! As they say in aviation circles, let’s hurry up and wait! 😄
Learning to be patient and wait for the right conditions to fly in is a big part of this project so I’ve taken the opportunity over the past week to do some exploring around Busselton instead.
There was a big cold front coming in, so I decided a walk down the jetty was in order to get some good views of the storm. I put on all my wet weather gear and got some great images of the storm clouds and rainbows. I was also shocked and surprised to come across a small flock of Wilson’s Storm Petrels feeding on the water beside the jetty about 500m offshore! I’ve only ever seen Wilson’s Stormies on pelagic boat trips on the continental shelf. It was such a treat to be able to watch them up close and film them on my phone 🥰 |
I’ve also been doing school visits and this week caught up with Year 8’s at Halls Head College in Mandurah as well as Child Side Playgroup and School in Boyanup.
Due to legal reasons, I can’t always share photos from the school visits because they need parents’ permission but I’m hoping to have a few more images to share later this week!
It’s great seeing the reactions of the kids to the illustrations in the book and to hear all of the questions afterwards about the birds and the microlight.
Last weekend also saw the official launch of A Shorebird Flying Adventure at the Willy Lit Fest! Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there to celebrate with author, Jackie Kerin, but she tells me over 100 people turned up including former Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks 😄
The launch was the third largest session of the festival and the shop sold out of our book during the event! I was totally chuffed to hear of it. Huge thanks to Jackie for organising the launch at Willy Lit Fest with CSIRO Publishing.
That’s it from me this week. Keep your eye our for Wing Threads Wednesday on Instagram this week where I’ll be featuring the Vasse-Wonerup Estuary in Busselton!
If the forecast holds for this week, it looks like I’ll be doing the next leg of the flight from Bunbury to Kojonup on Friday 24th June. I’ll send out an update to confirm the date and time on Thursday 23rd June after I check the aviation forecast.
