Dave Jacka

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I’ve had better Easter weekends!

It’s been awhile since the Easter long weekend when we went for a flying trip, but as you’ll find out in this blog, I’ve had better ones.

p>For the Easter weekend, Linda & I flew to Temora for the annual Natfly. We spent Easter Friday checking out aircrafts of all shapes & sizes, salivating over my next dream plane & caught up with friends.

On Friday night, we stayed with good friends Ian & Elaine Willis at their hanger in Cootamundra & had a great night with them, Glen & Wes. Ian put on a great BBQ dinner, finishing it off with his homebrew – Irish mint cream liquor – drink enough & it will make you go blind but it tasted so good! Earlier upon our arrival, as we were taxiing to their hanger, we discovered we had a flat tyre. Thanks to Ian, Glen & Wes for helping to put the spare on as we would probably have been stuck there for awhile. Elaine was wonderful as she kept us all hydrated & fed with nibblies.

Dave hard at work with a beer as he directs Ian & Glen.

On Easter Saturday, after a great breaky prepared on the barby by Ian, we left Cootamundra. It wasn’t until a few days later when we’d returned to Melbourne that we found out that Ian & Elaine had crashed their microlight on Easter Saturday afternoon as they returned to their Cootamundra hanger from a day spent at the Temora Natfly. They were wonderful friends & an inspirational couple. It is such a great loss to us all. We feel privileged to have known them.

From Cootamundra, we headed to Broken Hill for a romantic couple of days. We stopped in at Griffith to visit Gordan & Bob & chat to them about the around Australia trip next year. Both Gordan & Bob will be part of the support crew. It was great to catch up & we’ll be meeting again this month in Melbourne for trip planning.

The stopover in Griffith: Gordan, Bob & Dave.

It was Linda’s first visit to Broken Hill. So much for desert! The land was covered in green with very full Menindee Lakes. It’s easy to see why director George Miller decided is wasn’t possible to shoot the next Mad Max movie there. As he described “The Mad Max landscape looked like Wales”. It was beautiful to see the country so alive!

The beautiful colours of Broken Hill.

In Broken Hill, one of my favourite spots, I was so excited to have found a new hotel that had a great wheelchair accessible room (not an easy feat) and I gave it the thumbs up (again, not an easy task given my fingers don’t work). The hotel is the Red Earth & conveniently located in town.

Early Easter Sunday, we got the call that our Maltese cross puppy had died. Poor little Max had most likely been bitten by a snake on a friend’s farm where he was staying for the long weekend while we were away. This really hit us and took all the fun & excitement out of the trip. We just wanted to get home. We left Broken Hill on Easter Monday but got held up for an extra night in Swan Hill on our way home due to the terrible flying weather. It was a sad trip home with Linda upset with the loss of Max. He was a great dog who was so courageous, definitely a big dog in a small body. Max will be greatly missed.

Max Jacka

Well, since Easter, more things have happened. We very much missed having a puppy as part of the family. We now have a new little one. Zeus is a male border collie. You’ll see more of him in future blogs!

Over & out.

Dave & Zeus

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