Bertie's Travelogue Part 9 Seychelles - Mogadishu

Bidding a fond chao seselwa (Creole Seychellois for goodbye), I climbed up to 7000 feet for the flight back to Kisimayu in Somalia. To be honest. it wasn't that exciting once I had left the final islands as there is only so much azure sea and little white clouds one can take. Fortunately, the weather forecast was good so I decided to switch on the autopilot. Some would say this is cheating for a pilot but it can take a lot of the grunt work out of a flight. Do I really want to spend 5 hours peering at a heading and making miniscule corrections? I think not. Anyway, alone in the cockpit I had the chance to partake in my latest vice!

Some time ago, whilst looking for iPod Touch and iPhone apps, I noticed the best seller for some considerable time had been a little game called Angry Birds. It looked a bit silly so I took no notice but Miss Bassett decided to download the free trial version whilst tinkering on my iTouch and pronounced it rather fun. Cutting a long story short, I am totally hooked on the stupid game and even paid the princely sum of 59p to download the full version. For anybody that wants to while away every passing free moment, I heartily recommend it.

It certainly whiled away the hours whilst en route and I was relieved to see the African coast looming ahead. Kisimayu , Somalia's third largest city has been contested by many factions since the civil war began and since  UN troops finally left the area it has been held under the  control of local clans. The landing was more than a bit hairy as the strip (the airfield was formerly a Somali Air Force training base) has been poorly maintained. The main building has been abandoned and thoroughly looted but I was able to take fuel on board after a not inconsiderable exchange of US dollar bills. To be honest, that has to be the fastest refuel ever as the place had a brooding hostility with, it seemed, everybody carrying a weapon of some sort.

It's a quick 80 minute flight along the coast to Mogadishu but an equally rapid refuel before my flight to Moori. The trip was flown at low altitude and it made a nice change to see texture and contours rather than large chunks of the Indian Ocean.

Mogadishu Then

Mogadishu Now

Mogadishu itself was leased to Italy by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1892 and sold (yes, sold!) to Italy in 1905 when it became capital of the newly established Italian Somaliland. After Somalia gained independence in 1960 all was well until rebel forces entered Mogadishu in 1990 forcing the presence of a UN peacekeeping force which stayed until 1993 when the country was effectively abandoned. Mogadishu itself was run by warlords until 2006 when Islamists and businessmen formed a coalition government. Having said that, during the last 18 months, some 165,000 people have been displaced from the capital, with the mayor telling the locals to move away from the city as fighting is rampant and the only "police" presence is private guard hire for those that can afford it.

Next time you read a paper; buried in a corner away from the important news of Katie Price, X Factor or what's happening in Coronation Street, you might just find mention of the mess that is Somalia so spare them a thought. I've tried to find something positive about it but the best I can do is to tell you that Iman, model and Mrs David Bowie was born in Mogadishu.

Oh, and some of the currency used to be rather lovely.

5 shillings 1951

I have to say, that was a pretty depressing bit of the trip so I'm glad to be leaving Africa. The continent is, at times, fascinating, brutal, beautiful and savage ........... but always an enigma.

Next stop is the island of Socotra and the town of Moori, en route to the Middle East. See you there!

If you click on the View larger map below, you'll see the route from Mogadishu.

View Larger Map
NB, Just noticed that if you zoom into Mogadishu (Muqdisho) on the map, just to the northwest is a place called Wankawayn!! Not a Man U fan then?

Facebook - An Appreciation

Gosh, I seem to have got back into this blogging lark with a vengeance. One thing that has encouraged me is the reaction from some of my Facebook friends - and I use the word "friends" deliberately.

Once upon a time I looked on Facebook as a way for children to destroy their literary skills even further, imagining the majority of postings along the lines of Soz for bunking skul cuz i wuz w8ing 4 mi gf 2 call lol A couple of friends of mine were playing a game called Farm Town and so I decided to have a quick peek.

I got quite hooked and felt quite happy in my rural idyll. I was curious and interested to read Facebook posts of people I didn't now from all four corners of the world (not that a sphere can have corners but you can't call me pedantic). Well, actually you can insofar as it is physically possible if not ............. ah, I'm being pedantic aren't I? Anyway, I read sensible posts, funny posts, some downright cranky posts and it made me realise that there was a whole new world on Facebook.

I was then introduced to something called Mafia Wars: a game of families and fights where one can undertake tasks, help others and, should one so desire, rob, steal, kill and similarly piss off other players. At first I was reticent about asking perfect strangers to play with me (!) but one needs to liaise to progress. As I joined with other Mafia members I got to recognise names and interact to some degree or other. I got to see people's real life problems, worries, joys and successes as they saw fit to share them and, through that interaction, those names took on shapes. There are people on Facebook of extraordinary generosity whose joy is through helping and to those ...... Joo, Michelle A, Shay L, Bethany D, Marilyn S, Josie D, Mark J among others, I say heartfelt thanks.

Others say little but each day they are there to help and are now familiar names. Susan, David, Sandra, Sparky, Maureen, Barbara, Dolly , Steven .....many, many more. You are all stars.

Finally, there are the special crew whom I knew before Facebook and are my rocks. Kitty, Balders, Janet, Chockie, Lisa, Poblet, Mike, Mel, letsy, Rosey, plausey etc. I love you guys.

For anybody whom I have omitted, you know who you are and you know you are special.

What? I hear you cry, there has been no mention of your dear (but scary) twin sister, Bunty. Of course, she is almost a part of me [;)] and she has provided many a chortle, especially when her muff got infested with moths. Poor love, didn't realise that our American cousins use the word as a euphemism for something totally different!

Maybe I'll leave the last words to her - over to you, Bunty.

Ooh I say, Bertie dear, you've rather caught me on the hop. I'm actually busy helping the village operatic society rehearse for their performance of Cats - I'm rather afraid it sounds like the cats in question are slowly being strangled at the moment but I'm sure it'll be alright on the night. Now, what do you want me to say? Oh, the nice people on Facebook? Yes, well, awfully nice most of them. Get Brunhilde, my PA, to send them all a bottle of sherry. Now, bugger orf, I'm busy, Bless you all, dears.

Bertie's Travelogue Part 8 - Durban to Seychelles

OK, it's a fair cop! It was no coincidence that I happened to hang around in South Africa whilst the World Cup was on. To be honest I would have moved on earlier but I had all these "You give £2 a month to feed the poor in Africa and they use it to buy a f*cking trumpet" t-shirts to get rid of. I had a feeling that they wouldn't sell and eventually ditched them so I was soon able to depart the shores of Africa en route to the mysterious island of Madagascar.

One thing about Durban I must share with you are these chappies; the Zulu rickshaw pullers.

Now, this makes a pleasant change from the decorated transport in our fair land which, at best, can be described as bland. Furry dice, and "Beware, Princess on Board" & "My other car is also a piece of junk" stickers are hardly high art now, are they? Oh, for the days of the tiger tail sticking out of one's petrol tank!

Climbing into my trusty G-BERT and leaving a few rand for my ground crew, I set off across the Mozambique Channel to the town of Toliara, some 800 nautical miles away. It was so nice to be in the air again. - the freedom of the skies and the coastline slowly slipping away as I flew into a clear blue future. Four hours later and the coastline of Madagascar was in sight. The navigation worked!! Antananarivo ATC picked me up and vectored me in for a nice simple landing and I had arrived at last at an island which has always fascinated me.

To be honest, it's nothing like the movie but there you go. Becauseof its unique position, Madagascar has an unsurpassed collection of flora and fauna. Of the 10,000 plant species there, some 90% are found nowhere else in the world whilst the animal life has evolved separately to the rest of the world also - lemurs being a prime example. Tragically, mining and slash & burn foresting techniques are destroying a lot of the irreplaceable habitat and there seems little governmental pressure to limit this. It's estimated that 10% of the original forest habitat remains. Interestingly, only about 45% of the country are Christian with the majority of inhabitants practising Malagasy mythology, a traditional religion which emphasizes the links between living and dead. There is little doubt that the country would be classified as "third world" and it is shunned by many other countries due to the undemocratic nature of its military regime and ongoing civil war. All in all, not the best place in which to hang around.

Toliary itself was not the most exciting place so I decided to press on to the north of the island and the small airport at Sambava before pressing further northwards to the delights of the Seychelles. I paused to collect some of the new currency, the Ariary, which replaced the franc back in 2005. This is all a bit tragic as their banknotes were still influenced by the French ancestry (colonial French notes being predominantly delicate pastel shades and beautiful engraving). Now, the new notes are unprepossessing and dour, emulating how their country is becoming.

OK, off we go to the island paradise that is the Seychelles. A long 7 hour flight with only the sea and my built-in MP3 player for company. I tried my in-flight video camera and, as you can see, the controls aren't quite second nature yet! Still. I made it and that's the main thing.

The Seychelles - 115 islands and historically a transit point for trade between Africa and Asia and named after Jean Moreau de Séychelles, Louis XV's Minister of Finance. Britain nicked them back in 1810 although independence was granted in 1976. In true African style, there was a coup d'etat within a year although the islands has been democratically governed since 1991.

Obviously the islands are beautiful and an Eden for watersports as well the home of giant tortoises and the only flightless bird in the Indian Ocean (the White-Throated Rail). Mind you, who in their right mind would want to leave this paradise? Apparently the treasure of the notorious pirate Olivier de Vasseur (La Buze) is apparently buried somewhere in North Mahé. This is valued at $160,000,000 so I shall be buying a bucket and spade.

One other strange piece of flora peculiar to the Seychelles is the coco de mer, a species of palm indigenous to the islands. It gained a reputation amongst sailors as its floating seed resembles the disembodied buttocks of a woman and they spread wild tales of its origin. Personally, I would have said front bottom was more pertinent.

What think you? Dial 0858 123000 followed by the number 1 for bottom or 2 for whatever euphemism you care to use. I think "daisy" is rather nice. Until the true source of the nut was discovered in 1768, it was believed by many to grow on a mythical tree at the bottom of the ocean. European nobles in the sixteenth century would often have the shells of these nuts polished and decorated with valuable jewels for their own private galleries.

It's undoubtedly a place of magical beauty but I must travel onward. In order to reach the Persian Gulf I need to dog leg back to Africa and the country of Somalia as the straight route is not possible without finding a fuel station on the way. Perhaps I ought to Google "Indian Ocean service stations"?

Off We Go Again!

OK, so it's been a while since I landed in Durban on my round-the-world flight. In my virtual flying world, I spent 18 months there, scuba diving and giving flying lessons to the South African glitterati: in the real world, I have rediscovered photography, moved home and coped with various joys, trials and tribulations awaiting that moment when it was time once more to soar off into the wild blue yonder. Several people have tried to persuade me to get back flying (why do you think the Pope came over here?) and have even been kind enough to say how much they have missed the flying blogs so, hopefully, I won't disappoint as and when I get fully back into the swing of them. After the joys of Eastbourne's Airbourne,

I knew that the flying urge was upon me once more but there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. I dipped a toe in the water (not the best expression, I know) by installing the software once more as I had stripped it all out when I changed to Windows 7 64bit, and spent a few days checking through the wealth of other software I needed to install as well as "obtaining" new terrain software. This new terrain software totals 43GB and is apparently taken directly from a NASA mission sent up specifically to photograph the whole of the Earth. Optimal configuration of Flight Simulator X (FSX) isn't the easiest thing in the world but I read forums, tweaked, twiddled and tinkered until I was happy.I still wasn't quite in the right frame of mind to actually restart my flying so prevaricated by considering a change of aircraft. I had flown this far in my trusty Mooney M20 Bravo but noticed that there have been further additions to the FSX catalogue. Rapidly discarding such esoteric delights as the Vulcan bomber, Apache helicopter gunship and a space shuttle, I was rather taken with a snazzy little number which goes by the name of Beechcraft F33a Bonanza - shades of Hoss Cartwright and the Ponderosa (Google it, young'uns!),

I thought that this could be the new G-BERT. It had a different instrument panel and no all-singing, all-dancing Garmin G1000 glass cockpit

but that didn't phase me as all the many hours I had spent learning how to operate the damn thing have drifted out of my ageing mind. The one problem was that, unlike the Mooney, there was no easy way to change it to G-BERT.

A small thing to some but I was quite possessive of that call-sign and so I resolved to actually repaint the fuselage by busting open the program and changing the textures folder and the config. file. I had seen loads of repaints done by people so figured it shouldn't be too difficult. I could even design a new lime-green livery as well. 3 days later I had got nowhere and was more confused than a cow on astroturf so I thought that perhaps I quite liked my old Mooney after all!

I finally sat there on the tarmac at Shoreham airport, engine ticking over and flaps set at 15 degrees ready for a quick reorientation flight. I was only using the joystick as all my yoke and throttles take up a fair bit of space but that was more than enough to get me going. Engine to full and off I went, tearing down the runway .... that old familiar feeling of exhilaration at the thought of actually flying once more. Reaching rotation speed, I gently pulled back on the stick. A little bit harder ........... harder.......... I finally realised that something was wrong as I trundled over the A27 and headed northwards through the fields. Buggrit!!

2 hours of downloading new drivers, changing registry entries and reading the many complaints from Logitech joystick users later, I realised that perhaps I needed to get my yoke after all. Now where did I put all the different bits?

That was 2 days ago and I am now all set. Yoke and throttles synchronised, Mooney loaded and I'm finally ready to go. Although the blogs finished at Durban, I need to confess I did actually get further - over to Madagascar, up through the island and then on to the Seychelles - so the first blog will effectively be a catch-up.

I'm really quite excited at the thought of carrying on. Sad as it may seem, it's all kind of realistic as I fly and struggle with navigation, radio comms, bad weather and the distinct lack of toilet facilities (OK, don't panic, I don't get THAT realistic!). Dear reader, please feel free to join me on my journey. Pack your travel pills, shorts and camera, cancel the milk and let us sally forth, up into the skies where no man has gone before (ish)!

Diary of an Eastbourne Rock Star

People may mock Eastbourne but there is life beyond the genteel veneer. Take, for example, this Friday's concert being held at the Bandstand featuring a Rolling Stones tribute band.

As I was walking along the promenade this morning, I saw the band getting out of their Morris Traveller and, as they walked down to the bandstand to savour Friday's atmosphere, I fell into conversation with their roadie and paramedic Bazza "Funbags" Thrip. His story is retold verbatim:

"It's not our first gig at Eastbourne, you know, we always like to return to our roots. Our vocalist, Dick Sagger, used to go to school here so it's a home from home for him and Phil Hymen, the bass player, had an aunt that he stayed with once ............ or was that Bournemouth? Anyway, it's a great town and we always know that they'll be some action after the gig. Obviously, security is important for us so we always choose a well-guarded place to stay. Mon Repos guest house has quite a large hedge and their Pomeranian "Satan's Bitch" has a really nasty yap. *he laughs* I remember the reporter from the Eastbourne Gazette trying to sneak a picture of the boys trying on their new beige cardies ....... boy, I bet his ankle has still got the scars of those teethmarks!

I remember once, we'd finished the gig and I'd got the band back to their rooms. The front garden was full of fans and there was a nasty accident when 2 mobility scooters were trying to out-drag each other and collided with an old folk singer passing by. He's a mate of ours and was immediately rushed to hospital. Get well soon, Robert Zimmer-man.

Charlie Grots, the drummer, was busy drying himself after a fan, having already thrown her foundation garments, followed up with a Tena Lady and Dick was nursing a cut eye from an exuberantly lobbed Werthers.. The guys had asked me to bring back a few chicks for a party but, as the lift was broken and we were second floor, they'd take a while to get to us. Meanwhile, Ryan Scones, our mad guitarist, was laying out a couple of lines and there was heated discussion about whether the malted was better than the original granules.

Dick had just put on his slippers when there was a knock at the door and the sound of (rather asthmatic) giggling. As I opened the door, I saw a group of silver-haired ladies all wearing tabards with the slogan "W.I. Sucks!" embroidered on them. "Hi," they chorused, "we're the W.I.!!!" ............................... Some hours later, I looked at the sleeping bodies scattered round the room. In the gloom, I could see a smiling set of teeth and idly wondered whose they were?

Forget Vegas or the O2, it's Eastbourne for us every time ........... and they have a really good Primark as well!"