By Simon Plint

My earliest recollection of the Morning Glory was probably an article in Skysailor (now Soaring Australia) published after the first non-powered hang glider pilots flew it. That was ten years ago when CMac, Al Giles, Billo and PK made their first pilgrimage to Burketown.

I saw my first picture of a Morning Glory on a website called Dropbears.com. The pages at [http://www.dropbears.com/brough/] had been authored by a powered sailplane pilot who had been flying the wave since 1989. This site is an excellent source of information and images of the Morning Glory and a lot more.

My interest and subsequent reading of all the Morning Glory pages at Dropbears was the result of finding out that Billo and Al were organising a 2005 expedition to Burketown in memory of CMac. Apparently there was a spare seat. As it turned out this was all part of Billo's cunning plan to get me to drive his second car and to video the event. I had been singled out as having some sort of a knack with a video camera and an editing suite after the success of the Dalby DVD.

I just had to convince my wife and family of the value of this once in a lifetime experience. This was not going to be easy since there was no guarantee that the Morning Glory would even come in and JOD's itinerary was going to see us travel some 8,000km. This alone would cost a fortune in petrol.

To my delight and the envy of my work mates my wife, Tanya, was very understanding. She would have to run the house and look after the kids for four weeks without me. She does that anyway, come to think of it.

None of us wanted to think about the fact that we may not even see a Morning Glory; we all had to sign on knowing that our trip could be Morning Glory-less. At least we would get to see parts of Australia that most people don't. We were to drive from Newcastle (NSW) to Hawker (SA), and from there we would get on the Birdsville Track to take us through to Queensland then up to Burketown, our final destination in the tropical north of Australia...

Jason arrived to pick me up at 6am and my sleepy family watched in amazement through the front window as we managed to fit all my gear into an already overloaded Subaru. This was Billo's second car that he had bought for the trip to tow his Buzzard trike. In the weeks leading up to our departure Billo put in a lot of work so that we would be able to have two trikes in Burketown and thus have the best chance of getting on the wave.

We made our way to Rutherford to fuel up, zero the trip odometers and take a group shot. We nicknamed Billo's Subaru Christine because she had a mind of her own and communicated to us with beeps and flashes when we left a door open or the keys in the ignition. Billo had his Hilux and was towing the XTC 582 on the trailer he built. His passengers were Greg and Young Shane. JOD was in his Subaru with Al Giles (Dr Death), aircon and a fridge. I was with Jason in Billo's Subaru and as the others wheeled away from the servo Jason got on the radio to request a jump-start as our battery was dead. Was this an indication of our readiness to face the harsh centre of Australia?

I took a photo of Jason and Al jump-starting the car. Little did I know that was to be the last I saw of my camera until Burketown - the car was packed so tight it wasn't till then that I was able to find the bag into which I had placed it.

The day started off drizzly, then cleared to blue skies. We made our way west in high spirits. Jason and I needed another jump start in Merriwa, and by Gilgandra Jason had had enough and found an auto electrician who installed a new battery. Billo missed the turn to Gilgandra but caught up with us in Nyngan after visiting Dubbo. It was quite a distance between Merriwa and Nyngan, and as we speed across the plains under beautiful cloud streets I was impressed by the thought of Scott Barrett's flight from Denman to Nyngan, a valley record of 340km.

Selmsey and Shane had left the day before to do a flooring job in Moree. Shane worked as a labourer to cover his petrol costs for the trip. We found them in the pub with the longest veranda in Cobar. Come to think of it, we always found Selmsey in a pub. We stocked up with beer and food and headed out of town to make camp half way between Cobar and Wilcania in a rest stop.

The next day we awoke to a beautiful moonset and sunrise before making our way to Broken Hill. The McDonalds billboard on the outskirts of town was an indication that even though we had travelled so far we still hadn't got far enough. We stopped to get petrol and Selmsey made his way to the wreckers to find a radiator; he'd had enough of driving with the heater on to keep the engine cool.

Broken Hill was the point at which we headed south towards SA. The roads were getting longer and straighter and the scenery on each side more sparse. Flat for as far as you could see. We turned north at Peterborough while Selmsey and Shane headed to Port Augusta to continue the search for a radiator having come up with nothing in Broken Hill.

At Hawker we got petrol and more supplies and turned our noses up at the expensive fly nets you put over your hat, before heading into the National Park at Wilpena Pound.

We shared a campsite at Arkaroola with two or three busloads of school kids. The showers were hot but there was a line up and quite a wait as each kid thought he was back home. This concept was compounded by the fact that back at the buses there was a large screen set up with a DVD playing. Right. We had a nice fire and cook up, but still a ways to go to really get away from it.

Come morning and Billo gave us all joy flights over the Pound until the thermals picked up. Then we made our way towards Lyndhurst, but not before returning to Hawker and buying up all the fly nets. No one told me about the flies. Unbelievable.

The convoy had split up with JOD and Selmsey taking the more scenic route while we followed Billo on the bitumen. We were all to meet for a pie at Copley, but the others couldn't wait for us and left a message with one of the local kids whom we ignored as he ran down the street waving at us as we passed through the sleepy town at sunset.

We found the others in Lyndhurst, in the pub. This was to be the point at which Billo would start flying the XTC 582 over the dirt roads, but he didn't communicate this very well to the others and since they did not want to stay in Lyndhurst and Billo did not want to break up the group we made our way to Marree on the dirt.

JOD and Al stayed in the Marree pub while the rest of us camped by the old railway line at the end of town. Jason and Billo were getting quite good now at cooking a "mash-up" in the Trangias. I was suffering from a head cold and Jason was getting over a sore throat so it was an early night. Besides, I was to be first passenger in the trike flying the Birdsville Track the next day.

G-forces pressed me back into the seat as Billo increased the throttle and pushed the bar out to bank the trike up and around as we left the dirt road below and circled back over the guys at camp. We buzzed the pub and started up the Birdsville Track. Unfortunately Billo had mixed emotions as we made our way through the beautiful morning air. Here we were in this incredible setting, but the XTC 582 had taken a beating on the dirt road in spite of the beer cartons we had taped onto the spats. There were chips in the fibreglass and dints in the rear stays and in the Rotax radiator.

The view below us was like a moonscape with the polished red stones of the Stony Desert creating a mirage effect. I was still suffering from the head cold and could not stop my nose from running. Once the sponge microphone cover was saturated, snot started to whip up inside the full face helmet in the eddy currents.

We were heading for Cooper's Creek to pick up the next passenger. I assumed that Billo would have loaded the waypoints into his GPS, but when we landed at a homestead and he waved his GPS at the owner saying, "I have a GPS so I know exactly where I am... lost", I knew that he hadn't. We had landed at a homestead called Etaduna and we were treated to cups of tea and as much vegemite toast as we could eat. They had a broadband internet connection and Billo was able to get a weather report before we launched again. We circled up above the homestead while the men went back to work and the kids waved goodbye. Billo made the comment over the radio that his windscreen needed a wipe. He'd put my helmet on by mistake and I prayed that he did not get my cold as this could jeopardise the towing in Burketown.

The going was rougher now and the XTC 582 was starting to burn more fuel. We'd missed Coopers Creek and the last radio contact we'd had with the others was to hear that they had set up Selmsey's 220 Fun and were trying to fly a solitary hill in the Stony Desert.

We pushed on until we saw an airstrip where we landed again. This time it was glasses of cold water. It was so dry. We were at Mulka and Billo refused their kind offers of fuel as he knew that landowners round here did not have much to spare. Anyway, we weren't far from the Mungaranie Pub.

We landed at Mungaranie and taxied up the road to the petrol bowsers to fill up. It was my shout at the bar and I can tell you the first two stubbies did not even touch the sides and the egg and bacon roll was the best I think I've ever had. The others soon arrived but the track had taken its toll and we set about fixing the damage to trailers and cars. After that we grabbed some beers and jumped in the natural hot spring pool before heading off to find a campsite and a place for Billo to land.

That night we built a big fire and JOD invited us to dine in his billion star restaurant. The chef's special was jaffles, and, thanks to JOD and Splint's efficiency, everyone had an elegant sufficiency in quick time. The night sky was amazing as we watched satellites speed through the Milky Way. This was to be the first night that I rolled out a swag instead of a tent and slept by the fire. We were far enough away from the city now.

Day five of our trip so far and it was Jason's turn in the trike. I filmed the XTC 582 as Billo warmed the oil in the orange glow of a rising sun, then as he took off and climbed and banked in a 180 degree turn to fly across the setting moon.

I now had Christine to myself and we headed up the track with Greg and Shane in the Hilux not far behind. Although there were patches of water on the track it was pretty dry and not really a problem to drive on, but I would not do it in the wet. I was able to get some good footage of the other cars on the track and Selmsey found a sand hill to soar. We found the trike parked under a tree in the centre of Birdsville with two sleepy heads lying in its shade. We were all dry so we hit the Birdsville pub. More good tasting beer and a bar full of hats stuck to the rafters.

Shane was next in the trike and flew with Billo to a private airstrip just short of Bedourie. Billo was not happy to leave the trike there and so Shane joined the ground crew and we set off to find a suitable landing for Billo, who took off into the afternoon sun. As the light faded the dust from JOD's car ahead seemed to suddenly lie flat on the ground like a fog as the katabatic conditions took effect. Billo was on the radio complaining about heavy sink while Al was trying to find a patch of road that did not have a SWER line running next to it. He found one, a flat stretch of road between two crests in the road with sand hills on either side. We parked cars on the crests at each end and lit the road with our headlights. The drone of the XTC 582's Rotax overhead broke the eerie quiet we were listening to as we manned our stations. We were all concerned for Billo's safety as night landings can be dangerous. I watched as the lights from Christine blinked. Not because we'd left the door open but because Billo had just guided the trike over her roof-top and onto the road for a perfect landing. He rolled the trike off to the side of the road and that was our camp for the night.

Next morning Billo was up with the cockatoos and flying away against another sunrise and moon set. We met him at Boulia where we put the trike back on the trailer. It would be bitumen from here to Gregory Downs, just 120km short of Burketown. We camped in another rest stop just past Mt Isa, and as my sinuses started to clear Billo started blowing his nose and chanting the mantra, "Splint must die!"

Day seven was another long day of driving, but our reward was a swim in the river at Gregory Downs. A tranquil oasis and the first time some of us had washed in a week. I grabbed the esky from the car and dropped it on the riverbank.

Unfortunately we indulged for a little too long and by the time Billo was back in the air he only had enough light to make it to Brookdale, a homestead about 40km short of Burketown. Billo put the Cruze wing to sleep under the veranda and we picked him up and continued on to Burketown where Donny was waiting for us at the Burketown pub. He'd flown in two days before. We kept the celebrations brief, as tomorrow morning we would be up at 4am to fly the Morning Glory.

Glory Days continued next issue...