The engines fired up by 1520 and the second shortest taxi in history saw us blasting off in sequence RCN, JCU and ISB just 5 minutes later. It was actually the shortest taxi in the world at the time but Anthony has since broken the record. More of that anon. RCN had some trouble with a patch of sink just after rotation and had to return to earth to leap a second time. We had much the same experience. No such problems for the 300HP of the Cherokee however and it was not long before Anthony was running us both down as we wallowed on climb with the hot air and a heavy aeroplane.
Once we leveled out at 6500 things improved for us and we ran both planes down before Tibooburra. Nat and Harriet swapped air-to-air pictures as we went past RCN but Anthony passed too far to the north to allow us to repeat the exercise. The last 30 minutes of this leg were spectacular as the setting sun cast a wonderful desert landscape in a golden glow. We spotted at 4WD trailing dust on the road and realized there was bugger all wind to contend with on the ground. The hardstand was at the northern tip of the runway and so we chose 02 and had no trouble ghosting onto the strip in the rapidly cooling air. Time 1650 Flying time 1.6.
When the others arrived we pegged the a/c down in the dust and arranged for the local gas guy to fill 'em to the gunnels. He looked like a member of ZZ Top and he was not a happy camper when Andrew told him we were not staying at his hotel. But Andrew poured honey in his ear and as the litres of a gas flowed and the dollar signs ticked over in his head he settled down. The girls and the kids gotta lift with the SES into town but we had to accompany the petral-filla backto his pub to settle our accounts.An encounter or two with the town drunk didn't spoil our night and we had a very nice dinner on the verandah of the better pub in town and celebrated Nat and Andrew's 11th wedding anniversary.
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