The Oak is blooming and some nice trips

The oak tree which forms an integral part of our home has done its annual magical costume change as illustrated by these two photographs taken a few days apart.

Leon (my cousin) and me went on a quick visit to Bethlehem. We were hosted by Crause my youngest brother who operates his Air Ambulance Service and a flight school from there.

Our routing was through Vereeniging Oranjeville and Frankfort (where we had a great T-bone steak on the banks of the Wilge river) into Bethlehem.

The next Morning we went on a run through the valley of Clarence, Sunnyside and Golden Gate.

From there we went past Qua-Qua, Kestell, Reitz and so forth, this was noticably dry countryside but poised to turn into paradise by the first rains which cant be far off.

Leon's bike is fitted with a GPS which has this fantastic feature that allows you to download the record of a trip and lay it over Google Earth.

Th image above is of the Clarence - Golden Gate - Valley which is a real bikers dream with a smooth sweeping road in some of the most beautiful rock formations on earth.


That same evening I flew freight from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth and the to Cape Town and back to Port Elizabeth. It was great to fly overhead the same area that we covered that same morning on the bikes.
The boeing I was flying that night (ZS-OBN) is of course also fitted with a GPS and this is a shot I took of the GPS on the last leg of the night just before sunrise with a healthy tailwind indicating that our groundspeed was 1079 Km per hour.

Juanita went on a road trip (She had a few days off in Kigali before her next flight to Ethiopia).

Apparently she went some seven hours driving south along the great lake of Tanganyika and when she gets back I will post her photos and other details of the trip.

Criss Crossing Africa and Spring is here!

The Kosmos Steyls are busy:- Hunting - flying - skate boarding - Spring cruising etc.

All my brothers and my father went hunting on a farm near Kimberley in the Northern Cape. Louis represented the Kosmos Steyls and managed to shoot a nice Blesbuck which is currently as I am writing being turned into Biltong in Bloemfontein.

Juanita is by far the busiest - on a trip covering the length of Africa - several times. She went from Lanseria to Kigali in Rwanda on to Germany for a few days then Rome then back to Kigali. She is now in Malawi and still has to go to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia back to South Africa and the to New York before the end of September.

Last week On Thursday night the skies over Johannesburg was full of Steyl Pilots. Johan Jr. came into Johannesburg flying freight from Windhoek. Louis brought a patient down from Harare and me myself flew 22 Tons of freight from Johannesburg to Cape Town.

On Friday I spent the day in Cape Town and was privileged to meet Tyla the grand daughter of Johan and Susan Steyl at a lovely lunch at their home in Newlands Cape Town.

Then on the week end the start of summer was celebrated with the seasons opening cruise on the Dam, a very spectacular event in which approximately 200 powerboats all cruise around the lake past the various boat and yacht clubs and then light the fires for the traditional braais at their own club grounds.

Tonight I am on standby to fly but if I don't get called out the plan is to take the Intruder for a spin to the Eastern Free State with my cousin Leon on his GS 1200 BMW.

De Wet Steyl passed away

My parents were visiting us at the Dam for a week and on Friday the 17^th of August my father called me early in the morning to inform me that his older brother – my uncle, De Wet Steyl passed away.

De Wet was the second oldest of four brothers and he was 83 years old. Over the Last Eight years he was suffering from a stroke and although he understood everything that was going on around him, he could not communicate with people, except for his immediate family with whom he developed a sort of coded communication.

De Wet was married to Nancy for 59 years and had three children Barbara Cathy and Christopher. Chris has been living in the USA for the last 20 years or more and he flew out to be with his mother for a few days.

On Tuesday afternoon at 14:30 a service was held in the chapel at Rosehaven where Christopher paid a moving tribute to his father.

End of Winter

As can be seen on the image below where I am standing on the snowswept stairs to the aircraft, it has been a hard cold winter in South Africa - this was on the morning of the 27th of June this year and since we are not used to this and geared for snow it took us nearly two hours to clear the wings and tail of the Boeing 727 of ice and snow with the help of the Fire trucks


We then flew down to Cape Town and back and was greeted by a Johannesburg covered in snow, something that only happens every 30 odd years.

Over the last few months we as a family was very busy Louis still flying in Zimbabwe and Johan Jr in Namibia, Juanita has been home for a while but is now on a trip to Rwanda - Tanzania - Germany - Malawi and then America.

My own schedule was rather hectic as I had to go for my annual simulator training early in July and this year it was in Bournemouth in the UK. At the end of July after only 4 days at home I did another trip to West Africa and only returned last week. Both these trips were marked with unusual weather - the well publicized floods in the UK occurred while I was there and disrupted everything especially flights from Heathrow. In the photo me and Flt Eng. Mike Melton and First Officer Steve Brits is standing in front of the simulator - for the non aviation types, this is a instrument that can drain all your energy out of you in a very short period (normal sessions are 2 hours a short break and another 2 hours) also known as a sweatbox and various other nicknames. As you can imagine, not most pilots favourite machine to operate but a very effective training tool, where engine fires, hydraulic failures and malfunctioning control surfaces are "normal"!

The tour to Monrovia had just as much rain but it was less disruptive since they experience an annual rainfall of 6000mm or SIX Meters and the drainage over the years have been shaped to accommodate the amount of water.

I have now been back in SA for a week and thank goodness the winter is at its end. We have put our house on the market and in this area property only really sells in the summer.

This coming week my Brothers and father are going on a hunting trip for Blesbuck Springbuck and Kudu in the Northern Cape near Kimberley, I cant make it, but Louis has flown down specially for this from Harare so in my next post I hope to tell about their experiences to get some biltong for their respective families.