A day around Goondiwindi

A late start today, for me. Anyway this morning was fantastic in fact the whole day was.

Andrew asked me would I like to go for a fly in his Piper Cherokee 235. My answer was obvious and away we went. We departed Goondiwindi airport tracking to the west towards Boomi / Mungindi districts. We overflew numerous clients of Andrew, who is an agronomist located at Goondiwindi. He was concerned for the crops of his clients as much land was being coverd with flood water from the Macintyre River. 

I have never seen so much water in this area let alone see some much green crops and grasses. They are having a magnificent winter and early autumn. Sadly some crop areas will be decimated by the encroaching flood water. The losses will include chickpeas and wheat.

As we flew around it was amazing to see all the irrigation dams full along with the supply channels. Everything is full of water. This will allow summer crops like cotton to be planted as soon as the ground warms to the required temperature to germinate the cotton seed.

A likely impediment to successful winter and summer crops is the very likely attach by mice. This often occurs following similar weather conditions. Already squares of graph paper, soaked in canola oil, are indicating a large population of mice. This is already causing farmers to order mouse bait to be aerially spread by specially equipped aircraft.

On arrival back at Goondiwindi, Andrew and I went for a muggacino at the Larder Cafe which is like another office for Andrew. So much is transacted usually by phone when he is there. While we were there he received a call from his good friend Clay requesting a flight to Maroochydore Airport so that he could attend a wedding at nearby Maleny.

We departed from Goondiwindi for a short flight to Clay's farm to collect him then took off for the Sunshine Coast tracking over the Oakey Army base and Kilcoy to the Sunshine Coast Airport at Maroochydore.  We passed over some very pretty farm land and also near the Glasshouse Mountains.After 1 1/2 hours we arrived and dropped off Clay. 

As we had not had lunch we bought some at a Cafe and included another muggacino for me. Then we back tracked to Goondiwindi taking slightly longer due to a slight headwind. We were in the air for a total of just over 5 hours today. It was wonderful to to see the whole countryside looking so green and lush. I just hope that mice and grasshoppers do not cause any problems for these people who have endured many years of not such good seasons.