March, 11th

Raventhorp

We have come farther - not as far as we had hoped for, though, due to weather conditions that are very unusual for Australia. Everything went fine at the beginning. During the night it was very calm and we slept like logs untill we had to get up at 5:30 AM. After taking a shower with rain-water out of a huge tank we had some toast and the first visitor arrived. He brought the fuel we were lacking. While we prepared the trikes, fastened our bags and checked the maps once again we could see a thunderstorm coming up. It moved across the fresh wind that had already picked up and seemed to cross our route. We decided to hold off a bit on our take-off which proved to be the right decision. Soon after we had lightning and thunder all around us. Later that morning there even was a hefty downpour. In the meantime Harry had re-appeared from his workshop and insists on fixing us some lunch. He had set out a trap for crayfish this morning at one of these big water wholes that collects the rainwater all over the fields for the cattle and the sheep. To use this water for their purposes as wel, the farmers put out these river crayfish whose Australian name is "??#@&**!". They feed on lupins and we fed on them. In a few hours since this morning there were about 2 dozen crayfish in the trap. All we had to do was to put them in boiling water for a cople of minutes and we had a delicious light meal - high in proteins. The sky looked brighter already, but the winds were still very strong. Our next stop was to be Raventhorp, approximately 110 kilometers further East. Beneath us the distances between farmhouses grew larger. Once we spotted a farm with three tennis courts and a baseball field. Just no neighbour in sight whom you could have invited to play doubles!

Before we started this morning we had called the BP-gas station in Raventhorp and had asked them to bring us fuel to the airfield. Before the station manager himself had arrived, we already had two interested visitors who had seen us land and wanted to know all about our funny-looking planes. While waiting for the fuel we could see dark clouds gathering in the sky exactly in the area we were supposed to continue in. "Very unusual for this time of the year", we were assured by the two Australians. Well, that didn't help us at the moment. Just to be on the safe side we gave in, changed our plans and decided to overnight here in this 'remote' place and we lashed our planes on the lee-side of a group of trees. As it turned out we had made the right decision for a short while afterwards the sky went completely dark and rain and thunder started. At that time we were having dinner already at one of the four fastfood places in town. I have to admitt, this little village with 400 inhabitants and one intersection had two gas stations, one hotel with restaurant ("They had a change. The Chief is gone, now there is only a cook") and some good food. Unfortunately there was no phone-outlet in our motel-room so we will have to send this diary-entry lateron.