November 2007 - South Africa And New Guinea

there's only one of these cameras available on the whole continent. We also hired a Bell 407 which was rather comfy compared to the 44! The northern part of South Africa is very high, and only big twin engine choppers can get the job done safely. Filmed a 750XL operated by Naturelink Aviation, they are awesome people and I loved South Africa...just amazing. Had a full on conversation with a giraffe in the wild, met some cheetahs and elephants at a rescue centre, stumbled into some giraffe and zebra while in the chopper....just magic. At one stage I thought I was being stalked by a lion...turned out to be a pile of dirt and an over active imagination! South Africa was off the richter, sights, sounds, people...can't wait to go back there and see more. I'd love to do one of the trips where you can drive and camp in the game reserves. The animals are beautiful, so smart, precise and powerful.

Then it was off to Papua New Guinea to film a 750XL owned by Adventist Aviation. They are a mission service operating in the Eastern Highlands...I've never seen such rugged untouched country, it's breathtaking. We flew into different villages each day, most of the airstrips are just sections of cleared bush perched on the ridges of mountains. They make you look twice when you realise that you will landing on them shortly...especially when the pilot points out the wreckage of previous attempts on the way in! Ahhh, but they weren't flying the 750XL were they! Honestly, I wasn't worried at any stage. I could tell on the flight in from Lae that Damian was a very good pilot, and he really was excellent. The flying there is outrageous, they are constantly in and out of valleys, up and over ridges, dodging cloud and rain. They spend more time resetting the collision warning than actually flying!

The pilots all love flying the 750XL, it gives them a huge power advantage, flies stable at low speed, turns on peanut shell, and takes off and lands on 400m 18% slopes with ease..which in their game equates to safety. Not to mention that they can carry more cargo as well, these are happy customers indeed. And it's not just the plane company, the villagers all love the new 750 as well...it lets them transport more of their their produce to market which in turn provides for the community. If it wasn't for the planes, they would be completely isolated. It takes on average a week to walk from one village to the next. The people were something else, none of them had ever seen a video camera before, so it was great fun filming them with the monitor turned around so they could see their picture on camera....they just loved it, the biggest smiles you will ever see and I felt like Santa Claus! Lovely lovely people, hard to believe that a generation ago they were eating each other! But then again, I guess they look at us 'civilised' people and wonder what the hell we are doing... with all these bombs and wars, artificial foods and turning our backs on nature I think we must look like the crazy ones. Check out more pics and videos from the trip on the aviation page. Thank you Universe for this trip...mindblowing! Dan