© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

A Catalina almost bombed Cessnock

On April 22, 1946, some residents of Cessnock were told by police to evacuate their homes and remove their children to safety. A Catalina flying boat from Rathmines RAAF base was going to drop bombs nearby, and authorities wanted to make sure there were no accidental casualties. A Catalina flying boat from the Rathmines base at Lake Macquarie, circa 1942. The unexpected evacuation order had nothing to do with the widespread severe flooding across the Lower Hunter at the time. Instead, it was fire that prompted the demand. Earlier that week a disused portion of Cessnock…

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Travelling Through Time, dedicated to our Dads

Our 10th book, Travelling Through Time, will always be associated in our minds with sad endings and joyous beginnings. That's because for much of 2018 as we worked on the book, we were painfully aware that both our fathers were dying and - at the same time - we were awaiting the birth in Sweden of our first grandchild. As it happened our fathers died within a week of one another last October, just as the book was being printed, and little Elsie was born on November 1. Naturally we had to make our pilgrimage to…

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Read more about the article The last flight of Mike Delta X-ray
A Cessna 210. Photo from Wikipedia.

The last flight of Mike Delta X-ray

THE only unsolved aviation mystery in Australia since World War 2, the crash of Cessna 210 Mike Delta X-ray on August 9, 1981, has attracted hordes of searchers and spawned a myriad strange conspiracy stories. In 2005 I joined one of the annual searches for the missing plane, stumbling around the steep gullies and ridges of the Barrington Tops with a group of volunteers and returning wearied but none the wiser. I joined the search because I wanted to write about the crash for The Newcastle Herald, and thought visiting the area where the plane was…

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