28 Broome - Darwin

20. Feb 2007

I waited for 3 days in Broome for the Australian Customs to come up with the amount of money they wanted me to pay, and to tell me where to pay it. They never did.
 

By Tuesday afternoon I finally got hold of a Custom Broker in Perth, who had gotten on to someone else in Fremantle, who had contacted Customs, to solve the problem. By the time I had been sitting in the airport for 4 hours Tuesday, I had a phone call form the Custom Broker saying, that the Customs were now waiting for an instruction from Canberra to decide whether I should actually pay a deposit - or if I could get away with signing some sort of undertaking to pay duties if the plane was imported!
 

That was the straw that broke the camels back for me.
 

I had said from the very beginning, that I would pay whatever they wanted. After waiting 4 days now, it turns out, that they were now wasting my time contemplating if I should pay at all.  
 

Initially the Customs said, that the whole thing  just was a formality, that  should take only a few hours to solve Monday morning.  My ass – they were full of shit. They had no idea of what they were doing – and they did not give a damm!
 

They insisted that I only could go through a custom broker. I think they lied.
 

It’s like the Irish comedian Dave Allen said: “What a lovely country Australia is, and the people there are great. That is what I thought…..until I met the first white one” 
 

I decided to get out of Australia and back to a move civilised part of the world. I will go to Papua New Guinea – the only place I can go to within a reasonable distance. It will take about 13 hours of flying.
 

But you can’t just deal with the customs in Broome airport. I had to hire a car to go to the seaport, where they have their office. They released the plane, so I could fly to Darwin.
 

When I arrived in Broome, the Custom had instructed me to park the plane right by the terminal where other planes started up their engines, so all the prop wash would sandblast mine. And the Customs would not move it.
 

So late in the afternoon I was off to Darwin in Northern Australia. 
 

I had to give up getting to my main destination; I had travelled half way around the world and planned for a long time. I have several good friends in the South of Australia I was looking forward to seeing – friends I had not seen for many years.
 

Instead, I headed directly to Darwin, flying VFR, climbed to 11500 feet, preparing myself for a rough flight. There were plenty of thunderstorms in my direction – but I would rather deal with that, than having to have more to with the Australian Customs.!
 

A couple of hours out of Darwin it turned dark, and I had a lightshow of lightning all around me.

I did not speak to anyone for several hours, but about 100 miles from Darwin I contacted Brisbane Center, to get on an IFR flight plan; I was uncertain I could stay in VMC.
 

Arrived in Darwin 9.30 pm, and taxied to the General Aviation parking. Nobody there but me, so I had to find a way out of the airport, to get a cab to the city.