Lunch at Evans Head

Gold Coast – Byron Bay – Lismore – RAAF Museum

Evans Head is one of my favourite spots to fly for lunch. It’s a spectacular 40 minute flight via the Moreton Bay islands and the Gold Coast and there is a great sealed runway and the aviation museum on site that always has interesting displays and tours by retired RAAF engineers and aviators. You can also have a lunch at the surf club overlooking the beach or the pub, RSL or one of the cafes. In March 2019 Debbie and Paul Price were visiting from Melbourne so we decided we’d treat them to a flight in MSF to Evans so they could check out the F1-11 in the aviation museum and then have lunch at the surf club.

With the four of us on board I made sure I did the weight and balance calculation properly to determine the maximum fuel we could load. The limit would have allowed us to fly there and back with a bit to spare but as I always like to err on the safe side I decided we’d top up with fuel at Lismore on the way down, just in case. As it turned out we had perfect conditions for both flights with no wind, blue sky and one lonely cloud we punched through on the way back.

We flew VFR on the way down, passing over Moreton Island, Straddie, and the Gold Coast, obtaining our clearance abeam Q1 and following the coast as far as Byron Bay, where we cut inland to Lismore to land and top up with fuel.

From there it was a 7 minute hop over to Evans. After we finished looking around the RAAF museum Jeff the local taxi guy picked us up and took us to the surf club for lunch with its wonderful view over the beach. Suitably fed, we headed back out to the airport and climbed back into MSF. We flew IFR on the home journey at 8000 ft, passing over the Gold Coast hinterland.