Barry and his family soon settled into Aitape, the two children attending St Anna Community School as the only expatriates.

There were no roads outside Sepik’s townships and Franair busy servicing the needs of the mission stations in the region.

Barry later became chief pilot for the largest helicopter company in PNG and, after many years returned to New Zealand where he built a number of very successful businesses.

In semi-retirement, Barry bought a single engine Piper Comanche aircraft and undertook many flights around the Pacific.

Then, in 2019, he decided to fly around the world.

The extraordinary Sandra trained for her own pilot’s licence so they could take turns flying.

And so in 2019 they flew around the world.

Now Barry is doing it again with good friend Bob Bates who lives in Mt Hagen and owns a few resort hotels in remote places.

Bob has his own twin engine aircraft and over the years has chalked up many overseas flights.

The two men are following the route taken by the first aircraft to fly around the world – three American aircraft exactly 100 years ago.

Over the weekend Barry and Bob flew their trusty single engine Piper Comanche five hours over the Sea of Okhotsk to Yuzhno Sakhalinsk, a city on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s far east.

The second half of the round the world adventure which will soon visit Mt Hagen
before the two pilots head home to New Zealand

Barry wrote of their transit:

“I’m quite relieved to have the thousand mile long Aleutian Islands chain behind me.

“For some inexplicable reason, I had never felt so remote and isolated when flying...ever.

“Not only that, I never imagined the landforms being so huge and steeply rugged nor such tempestuous weather conditions.

“While holed-up at Adak conditions went from relatively benign to over 100 km/hr winds, rain and low cloud, all within the interval of a few hours.”

This morning they began the eight hour leg, flying south to Kagoshima.

From there In fact, they will fly nine hours to Guam and then seven plus hours to Mt Hagen.

Barry says a highlight of the trip has been “meeting so many wonderful people whose hospitality and friendship has unequivocally made our journey unforgettable.”