In late February/early March Phil Caiger and I did a short trip to Egypt in Phil’s TBM G-PTXC. It was a boys’ outing with our wives left safely at home. Luckily there was no ‘Beast from the East’; indeed the reverse was true and the latter half of February had brought unusual sunshine and warmth to most of the UK. We left Biggin after lunch on 25th February for Split in Croatia where we overnighted in Trogir, a town quite close to the airport where Miranda and I had stayed eighteen months earlier on our way to Tirana. In contrast to my last visit, the town was very quiet and we had to search around for a restaurant for dinner.
The original plan was to fly the first leg next day to Heraklion on Crete but a bad landing forecast required a revised plan. Instead we planned a stop at Zakynthos someway short of Crete and hurriedly made handling and refuelling arrangements which subsequently went smoothly. Phil flew these two legs. A potential complication was that the second leg of the day from Zakynthos to Luxor was approaching our maximum range but a tailwind was forecast. It was a long flight, just under four hours, culminating in my first night landing in XC. Handling was efficient and we were soon in a taxi in balmy evening air on our way to our hotel – the Winter Palace, an historic traditional watering hole and well recommended by some friends.
We had three splendid days of sightseeing; it was busy but not teeming with tourists and we could walk around without too much hustling from locals wanting to sell us stuff or take tours with them. There were a few tourist boats plying the Nile but many more tied up, reflecting the continued downturn in tourist traffic in recent years.
For the first day, we looked round Luxor itself, known in Greek times as Thebes and wandered round Luxor Temple and about a mile away, the much bigger and more interesting Karnak Temple complex, heavily restored in places.
On day two, we crossed by ferryboat to the West bank of the Nile and hired a driver to take us round the Valley of the Kings. Here, as its name suggests, a number of pharaoh kings are buried as well as other close relations of noble blood. These tombs are spread out over a wide area of what otherwise is arid rock and in many cases consist of a large number of adjoining underground chambers; most interesting to me where the wall decorations, most of which have been heavily restored.
On the third day (1st March), we took a day trip to Abu Simbel, about an hour’s flight down the Nile almost to the Sudanese border. We had an early start, overflying Aswan where Phil and I had landed on previous visits southward, and landed just before the daily influx of tourist planes from Hurghada and boarded the bus to take us to the the Temple complex of Ramesses II. This was well worth seeing; when the Aswan High Dam was built with the creation of Lake Nasser, the temples which would otherwise have been submerged were moved piece by piece and rebuilt on higher ground – a mammoth task and impeccably done under the UNESCO banner. Ramesses’s temple is particularly impressive but his wife’s temple next door is fine too albeit on a much smaller scale.
There was much more that we could have seen in this part of Egypt but for a first visit, three days seemed about right. Then time to return home; on 2nd March we left late morning and flew one leg to Heraklion arriving in time for a good walk round the port before dinner at our ‘usual’ restaurant there. Phil had never been to Bastia so he flew the first leg the following day there and then I flew the final leg home to Biggin. Alas the fine balmy weather in the UK had disappeared and been replaced with wind and rain – March is often a capricious month from a weather viewpoint.
Once again Phil’s TBM showed itself as a very capable aircraft able to cover large distances in relaxed comfort. Now for Oshkosh in July although we plan a quick visit to Friedrichshafen GA fair in April.