Team Alaska's Crete2Cape Adventure: Day 35. December 16. Plettenberg Bay to Stellenbosch Field in Cape Town, South Africa.

We didn't need alarms to wake us up on this auspicious morning. Today was the last day of our long, incredible journey. We were up early with anticipation. Nick and I looked at each other as we got ready to leave our room and head down to the dining room for breakfast and our last pilot briefing with our compadres and Sam. We both smiled and whispered to each other - "This is it! We've done it." When we saw the others, we saw that most everyone looked excited and weary at the same time. We were definitely in the same mode. Excited and weary. Sam began the briefing with an update on the Blue Mountain group. Keith and Colin, Pedro, Brett and Pix, "JB" (Baxter) and Norman were headed straight to Cape Town after a night at Prince Albert, northwest of our location where they landed late yesterday afternoon. Such a relief to hear of their progress. We were then asked to do a low fly-by over a particular airfield enroute to Cape Town as people there were alerted to our mission that day and wanted to see us. We were told about the media event that awaited us at Stellenbosch.

In the vans heading back to the airport we talked about what we would do for the two weeks we planned to spend in Cape Town being tourists for a change. We had arranged a home exchange with a woman who has a condo near the beach north of downtown. It was going to be a time of rest and preparing our planes for their trip home.

Our flight was 3 hours and 26 minutes from Plettenberg to Stellenbosch with one brief stop at Swellendam along the coast where we landed to get some fuel and oil. The flight was beautiful, gentle, and we had fun playing with our airplanes swooping low over ostrich farms, banking around wind turbines, and sneaking up on each other.

We crossed over a low ridge and saw False Bay ahead and to our left. Cape Town was way ahead at the base of famous Table Mountain. We turned inland to head north to the Stellenbosch Airfield and the conclusion of our rally. With excitement, we heard Keith and Pedro entering the pattern behind us. They had caught up with us in perfect time. Also arriving in their formation were Brett and Pixie in the Husky, "JB" Baxter and Norman in the Tiger Moth. So happy to see people showing up we had lost sight of days ago at Blue Mountain. Couldn't wait to hear about their flights.

It was 11:17 AM when we touched down. Nick made a nice landing which was good as there were many film crews and photographers there watching as we all came in for our last stop. We were directed to the parking area but found throngs of spectators milling around the taxi way. Not a good situation with a moving propeller, so we shut Smuggler down and had to hand push her to a parking spot.

Once tethered down, I looked around at our rally mates and we all looked stunned. Very quickly we started hugging each other and crying. "We did it!", we all were shouting to one another. Bob, Brett, Mark, and John Baxter were greeted by their relieved and cheering wives who had arrived in Cape Town already to watch their menfolk descend out of the sky at the end of this amazing journey. Our celebrating was cut short as reporters came up wanting video interviews. "What was it like in Ethiopia?" "What were the highlights?" "What's it like flying in an open cockpit bi-plane? "What do you do when it rains?" "Did you think you could ever do an adventure like this?" "Would you do it again?" "How will you get your planes home again?" All the questions were good ones and we were happy to talk about our experiences, but the experience was a little surreal. We had just flown the length of a huge continent in five and a half weeks in open cockpit biplanes. What in the world!
We heard about Keith and Colin's flight to Prince Albert the evening before and they too had to fly through the same weather system with strong winds we did. Colin said the turbulence was pretty bad and that Pedro's plane actually knifed over into a half roll during one bad whollop.

In one of the big reception tents, there were speeches by rally organizer Sam Rutherford, sponsors Puma Energy people, our own Paul representing BushCats of South Africa, and other dignitaries. After some cold sodas and snacks in the tent, Nick, Keith, Pedro and a few others took some journalists up for rides. A photo journalist from Reuters flew with Nick and got some great footage. Pedro and Keith managed to refuel their planes after they returned, but Nick was not able to refuel before it was announced the vintage aircraft pilots were to take off again for a flight around Cape Point and Table Mountain. Smuggler still had an hour and 15 minutes fuel left in the tank. We were told the whole flight around the point would be 45 minutes max. With that in mind, we headed out with the other biplanes for the "quick flight".

It was great flying to the coast, flying over the beaches of False Bay and heading for the Point. We arced around the point and saw where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean crash into each other. Rough surf without a doubt! We began to follow that coastline north towards the west face of Table Mountain when Sam who was flying in an enclosed plane with some film makers radioed us to circle back and fly around the Point again. This took time as we were essentially in formation and had to stay clear of one another as we were banking and turning. We did fine with this but when it came time to finally head towards Table Mountain, we started doing the math and Nick (a walking calculator) said over the intercom, "This isn't feeling right. We're pushing it with the fuel situation if we keep following the others up this side and further away from Stellenbosch. This is no '45 minutes' flight. I'm going to head us back to Stellenbosch now to play it safe. We didn't come this far to run out of gas and make an emergency landing in some farmer's vegetable garden." So, we radioed the others and said we were splitting off and heading back. We flew over some low hills and made it safely back.

As late afternoon approached, we all headed by bus to our hotel near downtown Cape Town and then on to a high rise building in the center of the business district for an informal cocktail reception for everyone. A formal banquet was on the agenda for the next evening at the 17th Century Castle of Good Hope which is a Provincial Historic Site. It is supposedly the best example of a Dutch East India Company fort that is still standing.

We went to sleep wondering how we would dress for this formal dinner. An unfortunate breakdown in communications earlier in the rally involving the disposition of a container of our personal items meant that we were without the formal wear we had packed for the trip which included 1920s attire, shoes etc. Well, as Scarlet O'Hara so ably put it, "Tumara is anutha day." We would figure it out somehow. Lights out for a much needed long sleep.
WE DID IT!!!

Some views enroute just west of Plettenberg, the Indian Ocean to our left.

The same mountain range we had to cross the day before. In this photo, it looks so sweet and benign.

Paying a social call on some ostriches.

Catching up with Cedric and Alexandra.

A group shot of those of us who stopped at Swellendam for fuel and oil.

Happy foursome. We were about to begin our last leg of flying with our good friends Cedric and Alexandra - Team Frog and Kiwi. We will never forget the great pleasure it was for us to fly along side them most of the rally and being there for each other when we all needed a little help.

Enroute to Stellenbosch. Nick flirted with the idea of flying between the wind generators. Ol' Stick in the Mud Me said, "Aw, let's not and say we did!" (Actually, we never said we did.)