Cleland Wildlife Park

I volunteer one day a week at Cleland Wildlife Park, and today was the volunteers AGM and Christmas Barbeque.  After business (and lunch) was over I took a stroll around the park with my camera.

This Red Kangaroo didn't seem too impressed having his photo taken, but the Koala was pretty chilled. (Aren't they always?) 

I went to the newly refurbished woodland aviary and got photos of a cute Zebra Finch, a Banded Lapwing and its week old chick, a beautiful Princess Parrot, and a Bar-shouldered Dove taking in the sunshine.

My next stop was going to be the forest aviary, and on the way I passed through the Emu and Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby enclosures, and almost tripped over a Southern Brown Bandicoot.

In the aviary I saw Australian King Parrot, Musk Lorikeet and Buff-banded Rail.

On the way back to the car, I heard, then saw a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, and got a close up of one of the Tasmanian Devils.

 

Special visitors to Adelaide Airport

Today saw a couple of special planes visit Adelaide Airport.  There was quite a crowd of plane-spotters at the local park. 

First was an Antonov An-124 Cargo plane UR-82029 of Ukrainian Antonov Airlines.  We don't see these very often in Adelaide.

This was followed by an Airbus A321 NEO of UK based luxury travel company TCS World Travel. This aircraft is fitted out to carry only 64 passengers - no legroom issue here!

Jamestown Airshow 2023

Sunday was the Jamestown Airshow.  A 2 1/2 hour plus drive north through the Clare Valley, it was an early start.  There is always a good variety of flying displays with planes old and new.

Amongst the more modern aircraft here were a Gazelle helicopter VH-OIX, a DG-01000S Glider VH-ZDG and a flypast of an RAAF P-8A Poseidon A 47-012 from RAAF Edinburgh.

The Republic SeaBee VH-UUM is always good to see, as is the SIAI Marchetti S-211 VH-CBL, but an inverted Beech 18 (VH-FID) was not something I expected to see!  

Aerotech Air Tractor VH-OUN put on a good display of water bombing, still wearing the markings from its recent trip to Europe where it had been deployed for for the norther hemisphere fire fighting season.

Jamestown is known for its warbird displays and this year was no exception with TBM Avenger VH-MML, T-28 Trojan VH-FNO, Boeing Stearman VH-USE and P-51 Mustang VH-LUI all putting on great displays.

Of course, an airshow wouldn't be an airshow without some aerobatics. First up was Paul Bennett in his Wolf Pitts VH-PVB, followed by Glenn Graham in the Edge 540 VH-PBU.  Later in the show they went up together for some formation aerobatics.

Speaking of formation aerobatics, the SA based Silver Sharks in their RV6s and RV7s put on a great show, as did James Hart in his Pitts S1 VH-XEY

A great show as always, and well worth the early start and the almost 400 Km (240 miles) driven in the day.

Birmingham - Istanbul - Kuala Lumpur - Adelaide

It was time to leave the UK and head back to Adelaide. I arrived in Birmingham with plenty of time before my flight.  I found the best vantage point I could, but it was directly into the sun.

Birmingham has all the usual budget and holiday charter airlines, but also has a few interesting airlines as well.  Shortly after I arrived, a SunExpress Boeing 737 TC-SOA arrived, quickly followed by a SunWing Airlines example C-FYJD. Brussels Airlines flies a regular scheduled service using an Airbus A319 OO-SSJ.  The aircraft I was waiting for arrived shortly after, a Turkish airlines Airbus A321NEO TC-LSY.

Other arrivals included TBM-930 N930DH and Embraer 550 9H-RFX

RAF Brize Norton is currently closed, having it's runway resurfaced so it's Airbus A400Ms are operating out of other airports.  Two were at Birmingham ZM415 and ZM421

On the far side of the airfield were two more Boeing 737s 9H-ELF, a BBJ and F-HIQE of ASL Airlines, a freighter.

My transit through Istanbul was at night, so no photos, and I arrived in Kuala Lumpur shortly before sunset.  I did see a few planes while I was there, including Starlux Airlines Airbus A3321NEO B-58211, Himalaya Airlines Airbus A320 9N-ALM, Vietnam airlines Airbus A321 VN-A392, Saudia Boeing 777 HZ-AK126 and just as the light was fading a Kargo Xpress Boeing 737 freighter 9M-KXP