***Two Thousand and Eleventeen. It’s got to be good***

A very Happy New Year to all our readers, we hope you enjoy the reports of our travels or even our technical articles.


And for those who can’t read, you could always look at the pictures of our travels here or here or here.


Enjoy, or not. Let us know what you think.

2010 in Review, Month by Month, Minute by Minute

The End of the Noughties and the Start of the Teenies.

2010 was a much better year than 2009 even though I did go through the agony of attaining APA (aged pension age). And unlike 2009, we had none of the health and technical problems which kept us frustratingly at home for the whole year, waiting for the various wounds to our bodies and credit cards to heal.

And maybe two thousand and eleventeen will be even better.

Read on for all last years details…

January, medical tests

In January I had a follow up biopsy on my prostate, and all was well fortunately, it’s still stable and under control. We did have to postpone our Australia Day BBQ because I was a bit apprehensive about the outcome and we never did get around to organising a get-together. Maybe 2011 will be the year.

February, a literary phase

During February, we wrote up our 1974/5 travels in Afghanistan and submitted 2 articles for publication in the CMCA’s Wanderer magazine. The on-line versions can be read here and here, and our full blog with all the gory (and I mean gory) details can be seen here. It only took 36 years to get around to it but I saw no point in peaking too soon.

Also in February we were awoken one night by scratching at the window. We though it was the bloody cat, but it wasn’t, it was a bloody  echidna (I get a bit cranky in the middle of the night) waddling along the front of our house. I took a few photos which it didn’t seem to mind and it wandered off to dig up someone else’s garden.

It was high summer by now and to provide a bit of shading and screening, I built a sun shelter for the pool at the end of the deck. I thought it turned out quite well but I asked J what we could add to give it a bit more character. She said “What about a bus timetable?”

Before…

…after. Bus timetable? Bah Humbug, I wanted some murals!

March was for computing

In March we saw Avatar in 3D. We’d been urged by the kids to see it and I have to say, as a Harry Potter hater, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mark and Mollie had a superb 3 week holiday in Bali and Thailand, including riding on elephants, playing with oran-utans, stroking snakes, eating insects, cuddling tigers etc, all the normal run-of-the-mill things you do on vacation.

A well fed tiger, hopefully

While this was all happening, we bought a new laptop computer, an Apple MacBook, because we needed one and not just because Dick Smith had a 10% off everything sale. We did need a smaller, more modern computer anyway to take on our travels for navigation, communications and storage of photos etc. It fitted in the glovebox of our Oka just fine, and during our subsequent trip it was on continuously for 3 months and never missed a beat, over thousands of rough km up to the tip of Cape York, across the Gulf of Carpentaria and back.

April, the Wedding and a Birthday

In April, we flew to Brisbane (take a deep breath) for the wedding of Janet’s cousin’s daughter Michelle, to Paul, who is the brother of her twin sister Paulette’s husband, Trevor. It’s a complex family tree, but at least they now all have the same name, Smith (with 2 “F”s, according to Trevor). And even more scary is that we are all now related.

The Bride arrived in tears…

…but cheered up immeasurably once she’d captured him

It was a stinking hot day and the wedding was held in their garden but it all went very well. We decorated the entire garden, put up shade tarps and strategically placed 9 pedestal fans, plus dozens of extension cables, to cool the guests.

The party in full swing

We celebrated the event in the usual merry way and discovered that you can actually dance the YMCA song to almost any tune. Not being able to spell also helps apparently.

“Y”, C”, “backwards C”…

“A”, “Y”, “Y”, “Y”, “A”. .. “M”s are obviously too difficult

Family photo with 3 generations. George and Ethel made it to the wedding but sadly George passed away a few months later

At the end of April, Scott celebrated his 30th birthday with a dinner at the Caledonian Hotel in North Adelaide. It was good for us to catch up with all his old mates again.

Scott’s 30th birthday bash

May, vehicle preparations

During May I fitted airbag suspension to the rear of the Oka. Why did I do this? Well even the strong new springs tend to sag under 6 tonnes of Oka when overloaded for our outback treks and this can (and has) lead to structural failures, which we can’t risk on remote outback tracks. Airbags take half of the load off the springs and make the ride a whole lot smoother over the shattering corrugations we frequently encounter.

Fitting airbags took a lot of cutting, welding and grinding of 5mm sheet steel, and a lot of precision fiddling to make the mounting brackets and fitting of air controls so we can inflate and deflate them from inside the cabin. That allows us to independently raise and lower the rear suspension height on each side, depending on load and track variations, and also allows us to level the vehicle at night so my wine doesn’t slide off the table.

Airbag installed

June, we reached the Tip of Cape York

In early June we set out on a trip up to the tip of Cape York. Our route took us up to Broken Hill, then left and north through Tibooburra and outback Queensland to Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands, just inland from Cairns and up a bit.

The GPS Track for our Cape York/Kunnunurra trip

Mareeba was a rest and repair stop before heading 800 km up though the central rain forest tracks of Cape York to stand at the northernmost point of the continent. It’s 4,400 km from Adelaide in almost a straight line north and took 4 weeks.

Standing at the Tip. Later I stood behind the sign so technically I was further north than north

The east coast of the Cape is warm, wet and very windy but the western side is hot, calm with beautiful beaches. Of course swimming is out due to crocodiles but we did take a day trip to Thursday Island only 140 km south of PNG. The people of the Cape were very friendly Torres Strait islanders, without the hang-ups of mainland Aboriginals, and we enjoyed the small towns and communities on the Cape, places we had never heard of like Bamaga, Seisia, Injinoo, New Mapoon and Umagico.

Sunset over the Coral Sea from Seisia

Best Fish and Chips ever, Spangled Emperor at Portlands Roads

July, “cruising” Highway One

After stopping off in Weipa for restocking of supplies, we headed back down the Cape to Mareeba for some more repair work before heading west though Nevil Shute’s “Town Like Alice” country, Normanton, Croydon and Burketown as we crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria on Highway One, but not like the one we have down here. Although it’s the same road, their Highway One is a rough, dusty gravel track bisected by numerous creek crossings and other spectacular water features.

Road junction in the middle of a creek crossing on Highway One

Leichhardt Falls, near Burketown

August, meeting up with Charles and Fred

It’s a long trip to Katherine from Cape York (0ver 2500 km) but we had a reason to go that way. Charles and Fred were heading out from the UK to pick up their caravan in Katherine and continue their grand tour of Western Australia and we wanted to cross paths with them. Well, we met up with them and helped drink some wine and then get their caravan back on the road.

The Team at Lake Argyle, blahdy blahdy times bigger than Sydney Harbour

We then travelled with them west as far as Kununurra before we had to part company and return to Adelaide while they continued their trip across to Broome and down the west coast to Perth before also heading back to Adelaide for another meeting. But without any help from us they managed to shred 2 tyres doing so.

September, the long trek south

Our trek took us 14,000 km over 3 1/2 months and, while we had a few problems as usual, this time mostly electrical, it was a very enjoyable trip. We only got bogged twice and the Oka, with its new airbags, performed very well. You can read all the details on our blog entries here (there are 7 sections). We are already planning our next trek across some more Len Beadell tracks in Western Australia. Actually I just wrote some up and published notes about Len Beadell and his tracks here.

Sturt Desert Peas near Gendambo

On the last leg of our journey south I past another milestone, I reached Aged Pension Age. We celebrated in Tennant Creek and after numerous visits to Centrelink offices all over the country I now get both an Australian and a UK pension. I even discovered that Ferranti, who I worked for in the UK and left in 1974, had a pension scheme, and although the company went bust in 1978, the funds had been invested with Prudential and I am now entitled to a pension from them too, small, but better than a smack in the head.

October, the wilderness tamed

Janet’s birthday passed quietly in October due mostly to the frenzy of gardening needed to clear the forest of 2 m high weeds and fallen trees that had cause most features of the garden (walls, steps, sheds etc) to completely disappear.

Where’s the garden?

2 weeks later, ah, there it is

The Commonwealth Games were now fast approaching and as is usual at these times, we bought a new TV. The last time we bought one was for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The new TV has a 42 inch screen and fits neatly into our corner cabinet (a primary criterium) but I had to build some new loudspeaker boxes because, while the new TV has a superb high definition LED/LCD screen, it is so thin that it has no room for decent speakers and it sounds like a 1960’s transistor radio.

One of the few mechanical problems we had with the Oka on our Cape York trip was a leaking power steering box. We kept the leak under control using a modified wine cask bladder (which we had to empty first) and when we got home I bought a seal repair kit and we replaced the leaking seal. Not an easy task but successful.

Also in October we received an invite to our niece’s wedding (Jules to Matt) next Feb, on a beach north of Wellington in New Zealand. Our passports had expired so we had to apply for new ones (which are not cheap, they obviously don’t want people leaving the country, at least not with any money) and book tickets for the trip. We’ll be away for 3 weeks so we can catch up with Myra, Clive and Melissa as well, and do a bit of a tour of the north island while we are there.

November, Scott moves to Melbourne

Scott has moved to Melbourne. He and Tash had been planning this for some time. Tash was finding it difficult establishing a good career in Adelaide (she has a degree in marketing and is doing a Masters in Business Management or something) and Scott was looking for a broader opportunities in the hospitality industry. So they rented out their house in Windsor Gardens and are renting a town house in Footscray, only 15 minutes from the Melbourne CBD, but with a small garden for their little dog, Harvey.

Cute little Harvey. He’s a bit bigger now.

Our task, of course, was to fix up his house and garden and render it suitable for renting. That meant repairing windows, doors and fly screens and shifting a mountain of mulch to around the back yard. It was a stressful time for everyone, especially when we recalled that we also left home at around the same age and shot off around the world. Now we know what it felt like for our parents. However, after a shaky start they have both found good jobs (with Pacific Brands and the Crown Casino respectively) and seem happy with the move.

December, Christmas preparations

Christmas shopping was impeded this year by receipt of a Parking Infringement Notice at Tea Tree Plaza. You would surely expect them to be attracting people in to their shops in these times of financial stress, not peeing them off, but apparently not. Our infringement was for overstaying the 5 hour limit but we would have had to been up way before dawn for that to be true, which is not like us at all. We were actually only there for an hour and a half so we are now in dispute with the council over this imposition, and in the true spirit of Australian judicial fairness, we now have to prove our innocence through phone calls, emails and statutory declarations. I’m considering a class action to recover punitive damages for mental stress, not to mention the $22 penalty.

Apart from that we had a pretty quiet Christmas and we’ll see you all in the first year of the second decade of the the third millennium.

2009, An Unexpected Year

To all our friends around the world.

Well, the year itself wasn’t unexpected but much of what happened was.

The first part of the year actually went pretty much according to plan, maybe too smoothly. There was the usual Australia Day BBQ followed by a hot summer, then a phase of repairing and upgrading the Oka in preparation for another outback trek, this time across Western Australia. Read on because it didn’t happen that way.

Janet’s 60th Birthday

By popular demand, Janet’s birthday had been deferred for several months, since we’d only just returned from a 14,000 km trek, and we eventually held a commemoration in conjunction with an Australia Day BBQ on, well, Australia Day.

A collage of Janet’s life in pictures

Interestingly, in a snap poll of the 20 or so people present, only one had actually been born in Australia. Quite what that meant in the context of our Australia Day celebrations we didn’t pursue, due to too many non-functioning brain cells. But it was also Chinese New Year’s day so, in true Aussie style, anything is worth celebrating if it has, as its basis, the legal consumption of alcohol.

The Victorian Bushfires

Severe bush fires in Victoria took up most peoples attention in February with 173 people killed and thousands of homes and lives destroyed.

How could anyone combat this? (ABC Photo)

The answer is no one could. It was an unstoppable ball of fire, a pyroclastic cloud consuming everything in its path and killing by radiant heat alone until nature took a hand, and the picture below shows the sad result for so many people.

(ABC Photo)

The heat was tremendous with many towns recording 48º temperatures. In Adelaide it officially reached 46º, or 115ºF on the old scale, and railway lines buckled in the heat.

(ABC Photo)

On the streets and at the beach it exceeded 50º.

(ABC Photos)

There were a few lighter moments though, this sculpture of a melted ice cream truck says it all about our long hot summer.

(ABC Photo)

The Lower Lakes

We went and had a look at the lower lakes region after many years of severe drought and water shortages. It’s more than 7 years since the River Murray actually reached the sea and Lake Alexandrina has become a sandy basin fit only for land yachting.

The Jetty at Lake Alexandrina

After the summer we were planning to “do” the Connie Sue and Gunbarrel Highways in outback WA (around 2,000 km of rough outback tracks for those who are not familiar with them), and out to the west coast for some sea breezes. But it didn’t quite happen that way.

We had a quintille of problems which kept us at home until late in the year.

Scary Health Moment

First I had a health scare when the doctor found a small lump on my prostate following my normal annual check-up. That required a biopsy, which confirmed a small amount of cancer, followed by a full day of x-rays, MRI’s and bone scans to determine its extent. Fortunately it is under control for the time being, not life threatening and hasn’t spread, and even if it does grow, there are surgical solutions to control it. The worst they found was a gall stone which shone out like a super-nova on the x-rays, but nothing to worry about. But all this took a couple of anxious months to resolve.

Toothache in the Differential

Then I found a broken tooth on the front differential gear of our Oka, (the opposite of a gall stone), which meant a complete strip down and rebuilding of the front axle. That’s now finished and we are back on the road but it kept us busy for a few more weeks. All good experience and I’ve written it up on our blog here.

The damaged gear.

Bella’s Operations

Then, just as we finished with that, our dog Bella had to have a large cancerous lump removed from her leg and it all took around 3 months for the wound and skin grafts (not to mention my credit card) to heal, before we could lumber Mark and Mollie with looking after her while we were away.

Poor Bella, looking just a bit sorry for herself after her skin graft operation.

So we were stuck at home through the cold and wet winter (by Adelaide standards), all packed up and ready to go but couldn’t leave. Very frustrating, but at least the vegie garden was blooming. We had a world record crop of broad beans (pity no one likes them except me), caulies, broccoli and beetroot and we managed to raise seeds from squash, pumpkins, sweetcorn, silver beet and tomatoes which are now all flourishing in the summer heat. Strawberries we grow too, but only for the birds and millipedes to eat.

Then while all that was happening there were more dramas:

A Sad Funeral

One of my long term friends and colleagues, Nigel, a jogger and non-smoker, succumbed to lung cancer and his funeral was both an enlightening but a very sober affair. Around 300 people turned out which was an indicator of his popularity.

The Car’s Gearbox

Then the car’s automatic gearbox, which kept jumping out of gear and generally messing around at inconvenient moments, needed an overhaul. Luckily it only cost us a small fortune when I was expecting it to be a large one.

Thigh Pains

Janet had been experiencing some thigh/hip pains but an ultrasound determined that they were caused by someone or other’s syndrome and she needed some injections to regrease the joints, which have only been partially successful.

The Water Tank Leak

Then in October, the solar hot water tank on the roof burst sending lots of hot water into the roof. Most of it went down the tiles and into the gutter but sufficient got though the tiles to cause the hall ceiling to sag in several places.

Strangely, the smoke alarm in the hall went off at 2.30am (just when your brain is not awake at all) and it was raining. Janet felt some splashes on her leg so we assumed a bit of rain had got in but I don’t understand how that set off the alarm. So we put a bucket under the drip, took the batteries out of the smoke alarm, stopped worrying about the technicalities involved and went back to bed.

In the morning it was still dripping, the bucket was full, but the sun was shining and there was no sign of rain. It was then, being slow learners, that we realised that the tank on the roof was leaking and it got progressively worse as the day wore on.

We had the tank replaced the next day (it was 20 years old so a “bit of a leak” was not unexpected), but getting the hall ceiling done was more problematic. The hot water caused the Gyproc panels to sag and potentially collapse so I had to prop them up pending finding someone to fix them.

The sagging ceiling panels in the hall.

Fortunately Mark’s friend Heath is in the wall board/plastering business and he gave us a quote and the insurance covered the cost of the ceiling repair but not the tank.

HF Antenna

I did manage to install another antenna for our HF radio in our Oka. It’s a 9 m high fibreglass telescopic whip antenna to enhance our communications abilities when we are remote from civilisation, which we seem to be most of the time.

9 m might seem a tad large compared with your average car radio aerial, but when it comes to HF radio transmissions, size definitely does matter. We do, however, have to maintain a keen watch out for thunderstorms as it could be attractive to lightning. In a thunderstorm, you don’t want to be the tallest thing around.

For the technically minded, 9 m happens to be a 1/4 wavelength on our primary communications frequency of 8.022 MHz which is the optimum length for effective transmission. It can give us a communications range of up to 3,000 km, far enough to seek assistance from any part of Australia.

Our 9 m HF antenna raised in a bush camp at dawn somewhere in outback NSW.

(Actually I know exactly where it was, and so I should with all the technology at our fingertips. It’s location is S31′ 33.72″, E146′ 55.19″, which is 25 km west of Nyngan, in bushland about 1 km south of the Barrier Highway, across the railway line and left at the next bush).

Our Trip to Brisbane

But despite all these dramas, none of them stopped us going up to Brisbane in November for Janet’s cousin’s twin daughters 40th birthday bash (I wish they were more closely related, it would save keystrokes). We left on 7 November and were away for about 4 weeks, getting back just in time to not miss all the Christmas silly season stuff.

We had a really good time in Brissie, staying with Janet’s cousin. The bash was a fancy dress party and I went as a Maharajah and Janet as a Maharini. If you don’t want to see someone in a turban pole-dancing around a Hills Hoist, look away now.

Janet and David in their Maharajah costumes.

David a bit later on needing the support of a clothes hoist, and yes that is a snake up his sleeve.

Who called the police? Oh, it’s OK, he was the host in disguise.

Before we left, our hosts shot off to Tassie for a few days leaving us in charge of their house, liquor supplies, BMW etc. Living in their house, driving their car and raiding their fridge felt like identity fraud.

When we eventually dragged ourselves away, we had been gone 4 weeks and did 4500 km, which is a very long way for a birthday party. We would have been away longer but it was very hot and humid and you just can’t do sight-seeing when it’s over 40º.

Part of the worlds largest Solar System Display, near the Warrumbungles National Park, around 100 km across, centred on the Siding Springs Observatory.

As it was, we did do some 4WDriving in a rain forest in the Border Ranges National Park, where Janet collected a leech on her foot, a tick on her leg and saw a snake close up, too close in her opinion. We also visited our friends Tim and Brenda in Byron Bay on the way back, and returned across the Barrier Highway through some stunning desert scenery between Broken Hill and Cobar.

A roadside stop in southern Queensland, (which is not between Broken Hill and Cobar).

On the way to and from Brisbane (which is more than a week’s drive each way), we stayed at a delightful free campsite alongside the Gwydir River in the town of Bingara, in northern NSW. The town’s forward thinking council are actively attracting motorhomers to come and stay in the town for free, in the expectation (accurate as it happens) that they will patronise local businesses and keep the town alive and thriving. We fully support that kind of RV Friendly symbiotic environment.

The Gwydir River campsite in Bingara.

One of the other nice places we stopped at was Peterborough in the mid-north of South Australia. They have an excellent railway museum there with a round house, engines etc, but unfortunately no working locos at the moment. It’s ironic that the main Trans-Australia railway passes through the town but you can’t actually go there by train. I’ve asked them to fix that.

What any small boy would want to do.

In Summary

Surprisingly, apart from all our dramas, all is well here. Global warming has deserted us for the time being after a record hot November and it’s quite cool and gently raining. Not enough to water the garden but enough to rust the tools I left out last night.

We’ve had an interesting if somewhat unexpected year and hopefully we can cope as well with whatever fate hands us next year.

We remain forever grateful that our problems, however frustrating they may be, are trivial compared with the really serious issues that some our friends are having to deal with.

We hope you have a really good Christmas break and good fortune in 2010.

David and Janet

2008 In Review

To all our family and friends.

Once again we’ve had a full, exciting and occasionally sad year.

In January we had our customary Australia Day BBQ on 26th January. It was hot of course, being mid summer, but we had a garden full of people and we sat out under the stars until very late (ie about 9.30 at our age).

In February we fitted solar panels to our Oka, ready for our next outback trek.

In March we had a severe wind gust which blew our new glass topped outdoor table across the patio and smashed it into a zillion pieces. Fortunately the insurance company paid for a new one.

In April, Scott bought a house about 10 kms away so we were busy fitting stuff to it: a new mail box, replacing window locks, extending his verandah, wiring up his workshop, all the things we didn’t have the time for but what parents are expected to do as a matter of course.

In May we overhauled the suspension on our Oka. Fitting new suspension bushes means lifting a 6 tonne vehicle safely to remove the heavy springs and is NOT EASY.

In April we were invited to a former colleague’s 60th birthday party in Moonta, a coastal town about 100 kms up the gulf. It was a surprise event which Mike knew almost nothing about and went off very well. His wife Jill arranged everything including renting 2 houses for the weekend for guest to stay at. We had a ball, but also a sore head the next day.

We also had a day trip to Sydney in April courtesy of my QANTAS Frequent Flyer points. We rode the train from the airport across the harbour bridge and did a tour of the Opera House. We hadn’t realised it was so complex a structure inside. There were some musical performers rehearsing and the acoustics were quite amazing.

In May we went to a 4WD Weekend arranged by our HF Radio Club in Quorn in the Flinders Ranges. This is a magic part of the country and only about 400 kms north of here. Local land owners have opened up their properties and access tracks to visitors. We did 2 very tough tracks which climbed and wound tortuously through the hills for 20 kms or so. We nearly rolled the Oka over on a few hair rising turns but escaped intact to fight another day.

Endless talk of our experiences around the BBQs took up each evening.

In June we left for another trek across Australia. We met up with some friends in Coober Pedy (1000kms north of here) and drove across the Great Victoria Desert on the Anne Beadell Highway, which is as far removed from being a “highway” as it’s possible to imagine, it’s just 2 wheel tracks across endless sand dunes and remote, but beautiful desert country. It took us 12 days to cover the 1500 kms and there was only one place to buy fuel and only 3 places where rain water was available. Lucky we are well prepared and fully self sufficient.

In July, continuing our trek, we turned north and trundled across yet more desert tracks to Alice Springs and had a good couple of days at Ormiston Gorge with Tim and Brenda, fellow Oka owners from Byron Bay in NSW.

It’s getting warm now as we head further north into the tropics and meet up with Charles and Fred, our friends from the UK who come out here for a few months each year to see a bit more of the country. We waited in Tennant Creek for their triumphant arrival but then I got a text message to say they had already triumphantly arrived some time earlier, and were waiting for us at the caravan park.

We spent the rest of July and part of August travelling with them up to Darwin which is a delightful city but where it was very hot and sticky.

While in Darwin we received a very sad message to say that the son of a very good friend had died after a car accident. We were devastated of course but what can you say or do when you’re 3000 kms away? We had known George all his life (26 years) and while we can still remember his Christening, we couldn’t attend his funeral, and that left us a bit shell shocked for a few days. 

But then Charles and Fred had to move on to catch flights home and we parted company until next year and we carried on our trek. That took us across the Northern Territory, where had some scary moments with crocodiles, towards the Gulf of Capenteria and to Mount Isa, and from there we headed south across outback Queensland arriving home 2000 kms later at the end of September.

We’d been away for 3 1/2 months, covered 14,000 kms, ticked off several other remote locations and revisited some of our favourites.

We’d had yet another great trek, but the garden had gone completely feral as you can imagine. So October and November seems to have been taken up with garden and house maintenance.

Recently I saw the design of a simple slide copier in an electronics magazine so I was fired up with a desire to relive our experiences on our overland trip from the UK to Australia in 1974/5. So I built it and copied all our best slides from the era into digital format. You can see these at http://picasaweb.google.com/jcribbans.

It is kind of scary to see just how young and slim we were then. I made a resolution to go on an immediate hunger strike, right after breakfast.

Today, ironically in the midst of both the global economic crisis and pre-Christmas spending rush, we are both fit and well and looking forward to our next years adventures, whatever they may be.

For some reason we have been thinking and talking of our long distance friends and relatives more this year than in previous years. Maybe the global crisis has made the world a smaller place. Certainly we are all in the same boat this year and, thinking positively, it can only get better from here?

Best wishes to you all for a safe, happy and rewarding Christmas and New Year.

David and Janet

Tragedy in The Bungle Bungles

Although we didn’t have the Oka at the time, we visited the Bungle Bungles (Purnululu) National Park for a second time in 2002.

One of the highlights of that visit was a half hour helicopter trip from Belburn Campsite over the rock formations.

It was scary but exhilarating, since the chopper had no doors (to improve visibility!) and we were totally reliant on seat belts to keep us in place. But the views as we swooped amongst the valleys and peaks made for a wonderful experience.


So we felt particularly sad when we read recently that one of the helicopters had crashed just after taking off, killing the pilot and 3 young women passengers. (see http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/helicopter-smash-kills-four/2008/09/15/1221330747956.html).

Having been there and done that brings the tragedy into sharper focus for us. It might have been the very chopper we had ridden in.

Either way it is a tragedy for the 4 people killed and their families, and for the reputation of one of the most memorable parts of Australia.