We are half way

We arrived at the Lanseria Business Airport just outside of Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon. We will be staying in Johannesburg for a business event until Monday morning. On Monday we will fly flying inbound again back home through the Eastern part of Africa.

While we are staying in Johannesburg, our Piper Archer III will go into regular maintenance.

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We have been very fortunate with the family run maintenance company at Lanseria Airport. They have been working on our aircraft and have not found any issues so far. The oil filter did not show any metal particles and was clean as well.

It was not easy to arrange the maintenance in South Africa to fit into the CAMO schedule at home. During our trip we did the 50 hours check ourselves as owner maintenance and were able to sign that off. Now here at Lanseria, the aircraft will receive a 100 hours maintenance check. On the way back home we will do another 50 hours owner check before reaching Teuge airfield again in the beginning of March.

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Categories: Flying in Africa

The Big Five - We got them all!

Hunting for the ‘BIG FIVE’

Our trip started at Teuge airfield in the Netherlands and the outbound destination was Johannesburg for a business meeting there of three days. Just before having to do a presentation on stage in Joburg with Steve Wozniak in front of 1300 business people, we spend some days relaxing at the private game reserve called Sabi Sabi.

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The Sabi Sabi Game Reserve consists of several lodges and is set in its own 6500 hectares of grounds. We were staying in the Earth Lodge where the guests stay in their own lodge giving you a feeling you are there by yourself in nature. There are no fences and at night a ranger has to escort you to your own lodge/room to make sure you are not confronted with elephants or lions on your way.

Every morning and evening we got the opportunity to join a “hunt” for the animals in a Toyota Landcruiser together with a ranger driving the jeep and a spotter sitting up front to spot animals and support the ranger. Off we were to hunt for the Big Five: the Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Rhino and the Buffalo. We have been very fortunate to find them all and even more! Normally, finding the leopard is the most difficult. We actually spotted both a female and male leopard. The Lion is normally easier to spot, but was only spotted on the last morning just before flying back from the Sabi Sabi private airstrip to the business airport of Johannesburg: Lanseria.

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After looking for animals for several hours it was time for a stop. We would depart the lodge at around 5.30 in the morning as at 9 in the morning the temperature could get up to about 35 degrees Celsius already. Here our ranger Terry is busy poring in the champagne.

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The above picture is of a female leopard. It was taken while the leopard was merely a few meters away from the Landcruiser. It was amazing to just see this wild animal on such a short distance.

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The safari that starts in the late afternoon runs into the night. At sunset and the short period afterwards a lot of the game was spotted. Here you see our ranger Terry driving the Landcruiser with the spotter all the way in the front.

During the day there was time to relax at the Earth Lodge. The whole Lodge was unfenced and it happened regularly that we would hit into elephants right in front of the lodge or while walking over to our private rooms/lodges. One of the leopards was spotted only 500 meters away from the lodge.

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The manager of the Sabi Sabi Earth Lodge standing in from of the lodge with an elephant nearby. The staff did a great job and all was perfectly arranged.

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This was my personal lodge, which was set aside from the main facilities about 300 meters into the wild. While sitting outside I spotted elephants right in front of my lodge.

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As you can see, the women at the Earth Lodge were making sure that the two pilots were all ok.

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After two full days at the lodge it was time to go again. Our ranger Terry took us to the Sabi Sabi runway which was just about a 15 minute drive away from the lodge facilities. He inspected the whole runway to make sure there would be no elephants or lions on the runway. After departure we made a fly-by over the lodge to say goodbye before heading off to Johannesburg for a three-day business meeting where I would share the stage in front of 1300 business people together with Steve Wozniak and others. Our trip to the business airport of Johannesburg (Lanseria airport) took us about an hour and a half. There the Piper would go into regular maintenance before leaving again on Monday on our inbound flight through East Africa back home.

 

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Greetings from Sabi Sabi Game Reserve

Over the last two days we have covered an extremely long distance. We left Luanda, Angola in the early sunday morning, to fly via Windhoek in Namibia to Keetmanshoop. After five hours of flying we reached Odangwa, where we would fill up the tanks again, which took us about one hour.
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From Odangwa we flew to Windhoek. Enroute we encountered the spectacular scenery Namibia is so well known of. We arrived at Windhoek shortly before 16:00 LT, and we still weren’t at our final destination of the day, which was Keetmanshoop.
We left Windhoek after another hour of formalities and refuelling. We arrived at Keetmanshoop around sunset, which was a little later than planned. We had flown 11 hours and covered over 1200 nautical miles, and were exhausted. But we were back on schedule!
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The next day we left at 7AM in the morning, to fly to our lodge at the Sabi-Sabi Wildlife Refuge in South Africa. Via Upington we arrived there at around 17:00LT, which was a little later than we hoped for. The strip is actually owned by the resort we will stay in for the coming days, and they made no fuss about it.
Now it is time to have some rest in Sabi Sabi. The scenery and wildlife is spectacular here. We hope to post some more pictures and stories from here in the coming days, as we have a little more time on our hands. Totsiens in Sabi Sabi!

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Flying In Africa: the three basics

We passed the western part of the continent of Africa and are thrilled by the vast beauty of  all the different landscapes, the people who seem so relaxed, and the wildlife in all different shapes and forms. And as we enjoy the flights, we are aware of the three basics for pilots who want to fly in this part of the world. We are happy to share them with you!

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1. PREPARATION

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Good preparation is the thing. I started reading the Lonely Planet guide for Africa twice from cover to cover to figure out what I would like to see and what to expect. This helped me in preparing for the route planning. I also talked to several (ferry) pilots who had experience flying through Africa, read e-books with accounts of bush flying in Africa and started filling in the details step-by-step. The total preparation took from 2 weeks before Christmas until the day before departure (full time from early morning until late at night).

2. FLEXIBILITY

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You need to be flexible to adapt to changes in weather, planning, delays. What helped is that I had the weather, flightplans and routes all preloaded on my iPhone and iPad(s). Filing of the flightplans I did digitally (using our own flightplan app) just about half an hour to 2 hours before departure). If I anticipated that I would not have time on a technical stop for refueling to file, I would file that flightplan ahead of time early in the morning in the hotel or guesthouse. Then, we would cope with what we would come across.

3. SENSE OF HUMOUR

You need to stay relaxed, smile and have a sense of humor. Connect with the locals and definitely do not get frustrated or at least don’t show it on your face.

Mastering these three essentials will make your experience rich and meaningful. Meeting new people, engaging in different cultures and adapting to a slower pace of life give a new perspective.

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Africa and Avgas

Our plans for yesterday were ambitious, as we planned to reach Namibia from Pointe-Noire in one day. But the day started early, and we had another fantastic flight along the African coast. It promised to be a good day. We spotted a lot of oil rigs at the sea. But despite the oil being so close, the prearranged and promised fuel appeared not to be available after landing at our first stop of the day: Luanda, Angola. After five hours of talking and negotiating we were very kindly offered one 200L barrel for 6000 USD. (:
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Naturally, we did not accept this offer. After a long talk (another two hours) with airport management we managed to arrange some fuel at more reasonable terms. Because of the long delay we were forced to stay overnight in Luanda however. We moved our planned departure time to 04:30 today. We left Luanda for Namibia at 0430 this morning, trying to catch up with our tight schedule again!

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Categories: Flying in Africa

'Relax, you're in Africa man!'

Our Friday started with leaving our great lodge at Sao Tomé de Principe. Unfortunately our schedule does not allow us to stay on this island any longer.

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It took us quite some time to get all the paperwork done and the aircraft re-fueled. It all went in the fashion and manner we have come to get used to over the last weeks. Today we would fly to Pointe-Noire, in Congo.

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Enroute we witnessed some spectacular thunderstorms and rainshowers before reaching the coast of Gabon. As we flew along the astonishing beaches of Gabon for hours we saw only one small village. The rest of the coast was completely deserted, with the rainforest starting a few meters from the shoreline. Seeing the coastline at a the height of a few hundred feet at the highest point happened to be quite spectaculair.

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We arrived at Pointe-Noire at around 14.00 o’clock. Our aircraft had proven itself a trustworthy travel platform once again, and it had gotten us thorough cleanup in the process, thanks to the rainshowers we encountered enroute. All Sahara desert dust was completely removed from the aircraft, which made it look like we arrived in a factory-fresh airplane at Pointe-Noire.

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As we taxied in, one large Airbus passenger-jet got pushed from the gate by a pushback truck. To our amazement the enthusiastic truck driver pushed the aircraft all the way to ánd on the active runway. The captain of the Airbus asked over the radio what they thought they were doing. His somewhat sarcastic “I never got pushed onto an active runway before” was replied to with a calm and happy voice from the tower: “Relax, you’re in Africa man!

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Climbing Mount Café

Our day at Sao Tomé de Principe started with some scuba diving. Being this close to the equator, 30 feet under water the temperature was still a sweetening 29 degrees Celsius. The scenery was spectacular however, and we spotted our first octopus.

We had lunch at our lodge, after which we decided to climb the mountain of Sao Tomé Island. With a Jeep of course. Enroute to the 9000ft-high summit we met some very nice people.

Our attention was first drawn by the sign saying ‘Mount Café.’ With Sjoerd Jan being a barista (link!) we took particular interest in this, and it appeared to be a coffee plantation.
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We met with the friendly owners and employees, and a delicious cup of coffee was prepared for us on the spot.

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No fancy cups and chrome coffee makers here: just a natural, pure Arabica coffee melange.

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We had to leave the plantation again to further climb the mountain. Down the road we were greeted by some of the local school children.

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All in all, we loved Sao Tomé. The people are relaxed and friendly, the coffee fantastic and the beaches great. However: time to leave again, back to mainland Africa: Congo.

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Arriving In The Tropics

We love the tropics! Yesterday we arrived from Accra, Ghana in Sao Tomé de Principe. More about our journey there later in this post, but lets start with the fact that Lex smiled again upon our arrival at our Lodge. Sao Tomé isn’t really a wealthy place, but it allows for some good relaxation on western standards, and again some great underwater scenery for scuba diving!

Last Tuesday we flew from Bamako to Accra. The flight took us about five hours in total.  Gradually the ground below turned green again and while flying over some small villages at 800 feet, locals were staring up and waving at us.
What amazed us, was that fires and large smoke plumes were taking away our visibility. Apparently the locals burn acres of wood to the ground to create fertile soil for crops. From time to time the smoke got so thick, we had to increase our altitude to keep a clear horizon.

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At Bobo-Dioulasso we made a stop. Imagine a fully equipped large airport with only two scheduled flights every day.

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Arriving in Accra around 16:00 we were parked amongst Boeings and Airbuses. See how we were refuelled in the local fashion:

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At Accra we found this Dutch-registered Fuji. We have no clue about its history and how it got here. You are welcome to share your information here!

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Yesterdaymorning we left Accra for a direct flight to Sao Tome. Blue up and below, until we had the large island in sight.

Today we will spend the day scuba diving and enjoying everything our luxury lodge has to offer. Tomorrow we will fly to Africa’s mainland again: Congo!

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Sjoerd Jan ter Welle and Lex Versteeg are flying from The Netherlands to South Africa and back in a small Piper aircraft. Read more about the team >here<

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Nothing but sand

Yesterday we left Atar, Mauritania for the next country on our list: Mali.

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We flew from Atar direct to Bamako, the capital city with several million people living there. While enroute there was nothing to see but sand, sand, and even more sand. The flight took over six hours. Other than the occasional tent camps there was nothing to see while enroute.

So we were happy when we approached Bamako, where the radio came to life again.
Because of the current political situation in Mali, the United Nations are omnipresent in Mali and its airspace. There even were a couple of Dutch pilots manning those UN planes. We switched our radio frequency to 123.45 to have a chat in our native language. Most of our fellow flying Dutchmen could not believe their ears at first, when they heard our registration.

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After landing at Bamako we met Erik from Special Air Services Mali. SAS Mali is a large turboprop operator in West-Africa, flying personell to the mines throughout the Western Sahara. Erik had a lot of interesting stories to tell about operating in this fascinating region.

Bamako is a large and busy city, but we have found our little oasis in a small bed and breakfast in the middle of town. From there we went to explore the city by one of the many bright yellow cabs that drive around. They are in very bad shape, and once you experience how they are driven, you understand why. The roads are total chaos.

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We then decided to explore the city from a more convenient platform, as we took a boatride along the Niger river through the city.

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Bamako is a fascinating place. People are dressed in bright coloured clothing, and everything seems just a bit more friendly than in Atar. However, a lot of things kept reminding us of the political situation in Northern Mali. The French embassy was heavily fortified, and the United Nations had taken the largest hotel of the city all for themselves. We regularly met European soldiers and policemen, involved in various missions.

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We enjoyed our short stay in this country, but we will have to leave again tomorrow. We will fly via Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso to Accra in Ghana. Stay tuned!

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Categories: Flying in Africa

Back in Africa

We have left Europe, and this time, we won’t be back anytime soon. As we flew from the Canary Islands to Atar in Mauritania, all we did see below us was sand, and an occasional herd of wild camels.

After a while the scenery became more diverse, with large rock formations and vast canyons. We flew as low as 300 feet over all this beauty, to enjoy it as much as possible. But then the sand came. It went straight through our fuselage, and reduced visibility quite a bit. We decided to climb to see if we could get above it. We had to climb to 7000 feet to regain normal visibility again.

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After landing we had some stressful conversations with local authorities, as they tried to explain to us we were not allowed to land on the airport.
Thanks to the assistance of some local Dutchmen we were soon allowed entrance to Mauritania nevertheless. The Dutch took us with their SUV to a fantastic oasis where we spent the rest of the day relaxing.

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Today, we visited the market in Atar, an old mining city, and enjoyed some local food and culture. This afternoon we will fly with some of our hosts around a spectacular crater, about 70 miles from where we are now. After that, we are promised some barrels of Avgas to fill up our airplane for the flight to Bamako tomorrow. We will be bound for Mali in the early morning!

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