This is a short tale of when my daughter Stacey went up in a bi-plane for the very first time!
It was a birthday present from her brother Michael. Seeing mumma *moi* wasn't happy AT ALL that her only daughter was going up in one of those itsy-bitsy flying machines, but the fact that it was something that was older than me, really didn't calm me down at all!
The day started out as usual in utter kaos! Mick, at the time, was living on the Gold Coast, that's approximately an hour drive north from where I live. Stace was living in Brisbane, approx two hours from her mumma! We had tried to organise our meeting at Mick's place down to the last detail, and all was going well, until I woke up! The day was here, my baby girl was going up in this silly little plane that looked, from the website, should be safe enough, but still WAY TOO small for me to feel right about the whole thing! All the way up to Mick's I was feeling sick that Stace (my baby girl) who just turned 21 was doing something her mumma would never think of doing, EVER!!! I DON'T LIKE PLANES!!! (if you haven't guessed by now!)
Anyway, back to the story. :-)
We all met at Micks place pretty much right on time, exchanged hugs, had a short time catching up on what's been happening in our lives then all loaded into Mick's car and headed on our way. The private air field where the flight was to take off from was approx half way between the Gold Coast (where Mick lives) and Brisbane (where Stace lives) so we calculated we'd have plenty of time to make it there way before the scheduled take off time of 11.00am.
We left Micks at 9.00am right on time and headed north. The traffic that time of the morning was pretty hectic, but nothing that would hold us up, unfortunately...;) We chatted on the way, Mick of course knew I was ancious about Stace going in that plane and of course Mick being Mick kept saying things like...."oh well sis, if the plane crashes, it'll probably only hurt for a few seconds" or "you know if the plane doesn't get off the ground within the first few mins, it'll probably crash into any tree that's at the end of the runway".....Stace was just laughing it all off, and I too had to giggle at what he was saying but deep down I was taking in every word and my panic level was starting to rise just that little bit more with every comment.
We were given directions from the owner of the joy flights that seemed quite easy to follow....THEY WEREN'T!!! so after going down the wrong road twice, and waisting loads of fuel, we finally found the right road and headed towards the air field. (if you want to call it that!) As we came to the end of the dirt road we were told we'd have to go on, (did I say dirt road, make that goat track!) we came to a fence with a very large gate across the road, with a just as large sign (KEEP OUT - PRIVATE PROPERTY)....we couldn't have gone down the wrong road again, could we!? No sign about joy flights, no sign of an air field, NOTHING, just this dirty great sign that was warning us to keep out!
By this time Stace was starting to have second thoughts about the whole thing, "FINALLY!!" I say...lol "How about we forget it and take you to Dreamworld?" I add, but Mick is determined his sister is going to take this damn joy flight come hell or high water!! He insists this must be the place as from the instructions the owner had given him said we'd come to a gate. He just didn't say don't take any notice of this stupid sign! I'm thinking "like a great way to welcome your customers, NOT!!"So I got out and opened the gate while Mick drove through. As I was getting back into the car I could here the two of them chuckling about how the whole area looked a lot like one of the Simpsons episodes with Cletus (a.k.a. The slack-jawed yokel) run down fences, nothing but weeds in the fields oh and the occasional brahma bull or cow, not sure from a distance...lol
Of course both of them went into their best slack-jawed yokel voices (if you've guessed that both my kids are Simpons fanatics, you'd be right) "Hey Ma, we got strangers a trespassin' on our dirt farm" and "looks like we eatin' dinner tonight yunins". By this time, I'm just laughing so much all of my fears for Stace had suddenly disappeared as I thought that this day was going to turn out completely different than what I had thought.
As Mick eased his little car along the even narrower goat track that was suppose to be a road, we couldn't see much of the paddocks directly in front of us because of an ENORMOUS clump of bamboo. Then as we inched pass it, seeing if we went over 5klms an hour the car would hit bottom because of the cavenous pot holes, we could suddenly see far in the distance, two paddocks. One to the left of the track with what could be described loosely as a caravan with a tin shed attached to it and an enormous amount of junk surrounding it. On the right hand side of the track were two bi-planes and as we got closer, I just couldn't believe these things could actually get off the ground!!
We all just burst into laughter at the sight of what we saw. This couldn't be the air field! Could it?
Yes it was!!
To cut a long story short, Stace did go up in that plane, three hours later!!
She said she could hear me screaming as the pilot did a loop-da-loop right above where Mick and I were standing.
Actually even the people who were waiting for the other plane to get ready were laughing at how much "I" was screaming....*blush*
Stace said she loved the 20min flight but swore she'd NEVER do it again!!!
THANK GOODNESS!!!!!!!!
We had fish and chips down the road from Micks place, oh after we got lost on our way back to his place...*blush* "well I could have sworn we'd turned right not left!!"
I've added some photos I took of the day. What a day!!
My kids, Stace and Mick * I ADORE THEM BOTH!*
Welcome to the office/reception area....lolololol
My baby girl went up in THAT!!!!!
The whole place was just so tidy! NOT!!
One of the 'Local Yokels'
Another 'Local Yokel'
At least they laid out the welcome mat.....umm I mean....pad....lolol | 
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