A Flying Visit To Einasleigh

This morning we flew about 500 km in little four seater Cessna airplane from Cairns to Einasleigh. You might think that is a strange destination, and, it probably is, but, the son of one of our Cairns friends is steadily working towards becoming a commercial pilot and he has to log a certain number of flying hours, and today he happened to be flying to Einasleigh. 

Flying out of Cairns

I actually think Connor is a fairly remarkable young man. He has been hooked on flying since his teens and is carefully amassing all the required skill, knowledge and experience he needs to become a pilot. It seems rare to see such focused effort on the part of someone relatively young and it's a refreshing change from the world of instantaneous gratification that we now inhabit. 

Connor

Once you get west of the manicured Tableland where crops of all types are laid out geometrically, there does not seem to be much of anything until you reach Einasleigh where the Copperfield River has carved a shallow gorge into the basalt. Behind Einasleigh lies the Newcastle Range where there are actually some hills and shallow gorges. We flew over a number of rivers along the way, the largest of which was the Herbert River, which originates on the Tableland and flows out to sea near Lucinda. 

Herbert River (I think)

At Einasleigh we landed on the small airstrip and Doug and I climbed over the fence and checked out the Copperfield River. The fracture pattens in the basalt reminded me of a climbing area in Washington by the Tieton River.

I'd like to blame my poor showing later today at the gym to missing breakfast and sitting too long in a confined seat but I am not sure that would be legitimate. I struggled through squats, bench press and barbell row and didn't get the full 5 sets of 5 repetitions of any of the lifts. It was only after, when I got up on the pull-up bar and did 12 pull-ups, that I thought I may not have tried hard enough in that lifting session. It was hot, I was a little low on calories, but, in the end, those are all excuses.