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.

Yammoussoukro and the "Vatican"

Since I have been flying around Africa for the last Thirty years I have become very used to chaotic slums and rusted tin shacks and general squalor of most African cities, and although I have flown into Yamoussoukro in the Ivory Coast on several occasions in the past I have never been there with the visibility being more than about 5000 meters.

Two days ago however the visibility was as good as it gets and I was treated to this fantastic view of the Cathedral and the city center, it took my breath away.

The cathedral at Yamoussoukro, known as the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix in english, our Lady of the Peace

I took the above photo from the cockpit as I flew over the Church

The following info I found on the Internet - Fascinating!!

Incongruously situated in the West African bush, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (French: Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix de Yamoussoukro) in Yamoussoukro is the largest church in the world.

The Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) is only 20-30% Christian, with the remainder adhering to indigenous animist religions (25-40%) and Islam (35-40%). The great basilica was the project of the Catholic former president of the Ivory Coast, who wished it to be a monument to himself.

Côte d'Ivoire president Félix Houphouët-Boigny chose his birthplace of Yamoussoukro as the new capital of his country in 1983. As part of the plan for the city, the president wished to memorialize himself with the construction of what would be the "greatest church in the world." The president commissioned a stained glass window of his image to be placed beside a gallery of stained glass of Jesus and the apostles.

View from the basilica. Photo: John Spier.

The basilica was constructed between 1985 and 1989 at a cost of US$300 million. It was intentionally modeled after the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, whose size it intentionally surpassed to become the largest church in the world. The cornerstone was laid on August 10, 1985, and was consecrated on September 10, 1990, by Pope John Paul II. Like its model in Rome, Yamoussoukro's basilica is not a cathedral. The nearby Cathedral of Saint Augustine is the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Yamoussoukro and the principal place of worship for the city.

The basilica has aroused much international controversy, for the lavish building glittering with Italian marble sits in the middle of an impoverished African city where only a minority of homes have running water and adequate sanitation, and the cost of the basilica doubled the national debt of Côte d'Ivoire. Despite this, many of the country's Catholics are proud of their monument.

I will be back in South Africa in a few days to have the Boeing 727 serviced and should be returning to Monrovia approximately the 6th of next month - June.

Aviation - Good, Bad and Ugly

The year 2007 has started with some good things and some really bad and ugly stuff, last week Jr phoned from Windhoek with alarming news that they have scratchy info about his friend Steven (who lived in the house with us during November when he and Johan did their training on the Beech 1900)

The initial news was that Steven has gone down in the desert near Luderitz and the as the time dragged on for the following hours more and more news came through from rescue people and hospitals etc. and all these were relayed to us via sms's from Johan Jr.

Aircraft found. wreck looks ok. did not burn or break up. - and later - Steven and all pax alive but hurt and on way to hospital in Luderitz. Then again a few hours later - not good Steven's back broken and in serious condition.

The next day Johan Jr and a team of medical staff flew to Luderitz in two aircraft and fetched all the pax and his friend and colleague Steven and brought them to Windhoek.

At this stage thing are not looking great. The forecast medical costs for Steven is around R700 000. and he is going to need some serious operations on his back. Crause Steyl owner of Air Ambulance has helped out and arranged for Steven to be flown to Cape Town where he arrived this morning and hopefully he will in time regain full health.
___________________________________________________________________________

So much for the bad and ugly side, we are thankful that we are all ok and Louis has done especially well this month by flying some 30 hours as "boy pilot" or autopilot on the Harare based Air Ambulance and he completed another part of his training yesterday and last night with his boss Captain Russell O'Gorman in the Jetstream. and he now is a qualified Co-Pilot.

With Steven out of the equation Jr has logged nearly 80 hours on the Beech 1900 this month and he is also looking at an offer from Bay Air to be the Safety Officer for the company.

Juanita is on her first flight of the year and left for Kigali yesterday and I just received an sms from her to say she is safely in Addis where she will be staying in a hotel where they were asked to bring their own sheets and towels - Africa is not for sissies!! Her passengers is attending the AU summit and most probably staying in the Addis Hilton regarded by most well travelled people as Africa's best hotel.

Slaves and Castles on Ghana's Goldcoast

The Photos in this post was all taken by Corne Steyn

At the end of our tours to Monrovia we always have a layover of a day and a half in Accra and during this last trip three of my colleagues, and myself, decided to hire a car and took a drive to have look at the slave castles that was built some 525 years ago by the Portuguese Spanish and Dutch Slave traders.

An example of how these Castles look today with myself in the slaves courtyard.

Below is one of our cabin attendants - Carmen Gilliomee - in the female dungeons under the governor's quarters in the Castle

Below is the final door trough which the slaves were taken to board the ships for Europe and America

This proved a fascinating bit of exploration and I was particularly impressed by the balanced portrayal of the history by the guide who showed us around. We were a group of 30 tourists of whom only 6 were white and the role of the black African traders were clearly spelled out and it was emphasised that both Black and White people profited from the slave trade.

Scattering through Africa 8 January

Yesterday the Steyls of Kosmos scattered all over Africa again.

1. I am already up in Monrovia, where I am flying between Monrovia and Accra.
2. Louis left from Johannesburg to Harare where he is starting a new venture with MARS.
3. The most dramatic event is that Johan Jr has flown our Cessna away forever to Namibia.

Above:- Here we were planning a flight some twelve years ago !

He flew a routing round the south of the Kalahari desert, from Kosmos via Kuruman to Upington where he refueled and cleared customs, then on to Keetmanshoop for Namibian Customs and fuel again then on to Eros airport in Windhoek. this took all and all, including all the stops some 10 hours?

It will be sold since it has served its time with us, both the boys did their training up to their commercial licenses on her. We owned the Cessna for almost 14 years and flew well over 1000 hrs to various memorable places around Southern Africa.

This old photo was taken in the door of ZS-CGE in 1994 with the boys aged 9 an 10

We'll remember the flight the boys made when they were in school and aged 16 and 17 to Cape Town and none of them could even drive a car and had to be fetched from Stellenbosch etc.

Then twice the whole family went all the way through Mozambique to the Bazaruto Island Archipelago where we stayed on Benguerra island for two fantastic holidays. Then there was the great flight across the Kalahari desert a few years ago to the Okavango Swamps in Botswana.

We will often miss the trusty little airplane!

Here she is parked in a hyena enclosure on the airstrip at Chitabe in the Swamps

Louis actually did his first flight on old years eve when he fetched a patient from Harare to Johannesburg, below is a Photo of the aircraft at Harare Airport.