Larry and Sharon McGillewie's travels

Day 1

Grahamstown – Gariep dam – Tempe (Bloemfontein) – Lindberg Lodge.

Flying time – 4.8 Hours

Distance 375 N Miles – (about 700 km)

Fantastic weather, but a slow trip, due to slowing down a lot, to be with 2 of the slower guys, Bryan and Johan, who only fly at about 60 knots, compared to our normal 100 knots!

Unfortunately Lindbergh Lodge had double booked us with a bunch of film crews, so we were relegated to what amounts to staff accommodation, with very poor showers etc! But, we’ve had worse, so hopefully things will get better! If you every come up to this part of the world, skip Lindbergh Lodge - on a bad day anyway. Nothing worse than coming into a bedroom where other guests have been smoking!

The entire countryside is green and there is evidence of lots of ground water all over the place, we made an unfortunate mistake and landed at Gariep, a really nice airfield with two fantastic tar runways and we were charged R100 landing fees, no facilities. Apparently the airfield has been bought by some Germans and they are keen to turn a profit, the only thing they are going to do is turn aviators away. Our next landing was at New Tempe, good facilities and R25 landing fees, runways are great and lots of activity and friendly faces. LSA training school, PPL, helicopters, gyrocopters and meatbombs.

While at Tempe we received our Botswana Authority, we were told that we would need 3 days so we gave them three weeks and battled like hell and R1400 per application later we eventually got the permission!! African time at its best.

Namibia applications were a lot easier – but only thanks to the friendly guys from MICAN – the Namibia microlight association. Without them, we would probably never have got the authority to fly.