Burketown is the sort of place where you find yourself sailing a land
yacht borrowed from the pub down the main (and only) street to the edge
of town, and spot a trike landing there. At night there are stars down
to the horizon, and cane toads up to it. The local air-sea rescue have a
barbie every week, and in early October it's Oktoberfest barbie. There's
nothing quite like wearing braces on your shorts and a plastic feathered
Tyrolean hat, eating Kransky sausage and drinking Grolsch to the strains
of thigh-slapping oompah music on the ghetto blaster while it's 35
celsius after sunset with the Cross blazing overhead. Cane toad golf is
the local sport and there's a number six iron behind the bar in the pub
for that purpose - unfortunately it's a lefty.

  The airport comes alive before dawn, with trikes, foot blenders and
motorgliders all being prepared for launch at first light. Anything with
a motor and a glide angle above unity is welcome to give it a go, though
we've yet to see the first paramotor up. Trikes can switch off and soar
the wave after towing the kites up. Hangies set up on the salt flats and
can aerotow in sequence or cartow in ones, twos and threes. The record
is still only three kites on three strings off one Landcruiser, because
even a 'Cruiser eventually runs out of grunt. It helps to match the wing
loadings a bit if you're triple-towing - PPP with his wingloading of a
half-starved gnat rocketed skyward while Doctor Death was still trying
to get his VB gut off the deck, with Conrad somewhere in between. If
there are no waves you can always have an XC on tow - the salt flats go
a fair way. On one occasion Dr. Death and Conrad were dual towing and
practising 180 degree turns on tow, which means the Cruiser has to do a
screaming handbrake turn and about face. Conrad's rope caught under a
log washed onto the saltflats by the last wet season, and the faster the
Cruiser towed, the faster he came down. If all else fails you can go
thermalling - the cycles start at 0900.

  A certain footblender pilot (who will be nameless although it rhymes
with 'snake') arrived in Burketown for the first time late one night and
had a few beers before crashing. He was woken at 0400 the next day and
launched his rigid wing/motorharness into the grey dawn without maps or
battery charging, and shortly afterwards found himself at 8000' surfing
a huge Glory down the Gulf. It took him away over tiger country, and he
landed in a clearing too small to fly out of again with failing radio
and GPS batteries. Connecting his nicads in series, or is it parallel,
he got a position and transmitted it just as the charge failed. Russ and
Dr. Death found his glider and harness at the specified spot in the
bush, next to a river arm with friendly lizards, but no pilot. Great,
you have the wing, I'll keep the motor harness. We packed it up and
returned down the long and winding bush track to the homestead, to find
said pilot sitting on the verandah and sinking VBs with the landowner's
daughter. He was buying the beers for nights after that.

  et cetera....