Alphen aan den Rijn Friday January 25 2013
ritzdeluy@hotmail.com www.soaringcafe.com www.glidinginternational.com
Kangaroos at the caravan park at Sportaviation
LAST PART OF THE DIARY ,FIRST FROM KUALA LUMPUR THAN FROM HOME.
It’s 6 in the morning and I arrived 1 hour early at Kuala Lumpur, meaning 1 hour more waiting to continue to the minus 7 dgr.in Holland. Easy to get used to the cold here, as the airco makes over-hours and I am just freezing.
Had a great first part of the trip. Forgot to ask for a window or aisle seat. In the end good that I did n’t as I had 4 ,as in FOUR seats for myself, so I slept for 5 hours had a light breakfast and I am sitting bright eyed on a spot close to the gate WITHOUT airco. It’s some kind of art to find such a place.
I left Toc at 11.30, just had time to catch up with Ray Waller, who arrived in the caravan park from Sportaviation for the long weekend { Australia day on Jan. 26} and to go to Rosa in Cobram my very good travel agent for years. I tried hard to check in via internet and print out a boarding card. It did not work and even she was not able to do so. No worries as I had time enough.
Caught up with Richard V., one of our instructors in the past, who I missed seeing, but we had time to talk in the car park of the Cobram shopping center. Weird but on this last day I visited [of course] Dennis and coming back from the cemetery there is this huge truck stopping on the site of the road. Ouch, a big bloke jumped out and nobody to see in the whole area. But,…a loud Hi Ritz at the same moment as I recognized him and big smiles and hugs; one of our former tuggies Geoff Gowty. He called straight away Charlie Tootle, yes the dad from young Charlie who was also one of our tuggies.
Young Charlie . married to Bianca , has 3 sons now, an AG business with several AG-planes/crop dusters not too far above Sydney and a small jet to pick up mum and dad. Not bad for our “a bit wild boy” when he was young.
Via car, bus and train I arrived in Melbourne at 7, easy trip.
Nice quick flight with Malaysian and then back home. More from Holland.
Holland;
It was not that easy to depart from Kuala Lumpur with our big blue bird a 747 from KLM. We were nicely checked in, in time, ready to go and waiting for the yes to depart when we turned around and the captain told us that there was a problem with engine 4 and we could not go, but went back to the terminal to check why the oil indicator did not work.
Technicians rushed to the plane and after a short while, we were sitting in a hot plane, the captain was back to share with us, what was wrong.
It could be a broken sensor, than we needed a new one and a search to find one was started, meaning we would have to get out of the plane again and wait till it was ready aprox. 2 to 3 hours. Or,….. there was something wrong with the wires , meaning we would be able to not depart before the next day , but he did not expect that.
After 2 hours , with great KLM service on board and a very open captain sharing with us what happened…. that gives you a good feeling,….the verdict was there. It was” only “a filthy sensor!!!
So we got some more fuel and had to undo the seat belts while tanking, waited a few more minutes for paperwork , engine 4 was tested for 15 minutes and,…there was the all clear to go!!!
No more excitement during the flight, no “bed ” as the plane was full , 3 movies and some music and with a bit more then 2 hour delay I arrived in cold Holland.
Another trip, lot’s of stories and pictures and in a way also happy to be home again. The sun now is shining brightly , the snow is slowly disappearing, it’s about -5 and the winter will be over after the weekend at-least for a while as fore-casted, so time to start 2013 in Holland.
Finish with the good life of Australia, kangaroos and birds sharing life with the people, what do you want more.
Dundees bird bath is used by many.
