By Mikayla van Loon
Two women, one plane and over 1500 kilometres of distance to travel between dawn and dusk is a challenge that awaits two female pilots from the Yarra Valley.
Delia Jones and Theresa MacDonald are planning to travel the length of the Murray River, from the alps to the ocean, roughly between the hours of 5am and 8.30pm as part of the International Dawn to Dusk Competition.
Setting off from Lilydale Airport on 28 November, Delia and Theresa will spend a night in Benalla, with the intention of travelling to the source of the Murray at Indi Springs to begin their official flight path on 29 November.
“Then we’ll follow it on its course all the way down to Goolwa in South Australia,” Theresa said.
The in-flight time is expected to take over eight hours, with the pilots planning to make eight stops throughout the trip to refuel and meet with other female pilots from across the two states.
“When we get to Goolwa there’s Lake Alexandrina, if we’ve still got time before landing we’ll do a lap of the lake and a group of South Australian women pilots are meeting us there and taking us to dinner. That’s the plan at least,” Theresa said.
“I’m also trying to get a formation endorsement, which allows you to fly close to other planes. If I get that, then we’ve got a couple of fellas who are going to see us off from Lilydale, and there’s a lady up at Yarrawonga who’s going to do a little formation with us from Yarrawonga to Tocumwal.”
Part of the competition requires documentation of the process and journey, so Delia has acquired two cameras, one that will be attached to the outside of the plane, while the other will be inside the cabin.
While for the first section of the flight over the high country, the plane will have to stay quite high, after that they can descend closer to ground, hopefully getting to fully experience the Australian landscape, from outback to greenery and eventually ocean.
Delia has also been tasked with exploring the history of the Murray River, another requirement of the competition submission.
“So from the original uses by the Aboriginals through to the early settlements, and the explorers that went through there, like Burke and Wills,” she said.
“Up to the present day, with the Murray Darling plan and usage, agriculture and what they’re using up here, and requirements for water because all the towns, of course, rely on the Murray for water.
“Then when horse and cart changed, and it was vehicles, how the structure of the towns changed. When they used to have railways into the towns, then they stopped that, then it was cars, and they would just bypass all the towns getting to Sydney.”
This will be Theresa’s second flight challenge in the Dawn to Dusk competition, having completed the ‘Australia in a day’ flight with three other pilots in 2022 but for Delia, it has always been a dream.
“Back in 2009 I was absolutely enthralled by a woman pilot giving a talk at one of the conferences, Marion McCall, about her attempts at the Dawn to Dusk,” Delia said.
“It’s been on my bucket list ever since.”
Instantly suggesting the Murray River idea as soon as Theresa agreed to take on another flight challenge, the pair have been planning and researching since February.
It will be Delia who gets the honours of doing the last leg and lap of Lake Alexandrina before touching down in Goolwa, hopefully having completed the challenge successfully.
Delia and Theresa met around 20 years ago as they both embarked on their pilot training in a small group of other women at Lilydale.
“I think there were six or seven women pilots then, not many at all. Now there’s loads of them there. But because there weren’t many women we gravitated towards each other,” Theresa said.
Among the small group were Marjy and Helen who both lost their battles with cancer, “that’s why we’re doing this”.
“Raising [money] in their memory” for Counterpart, a cancer support group where women support women, felt only right for Delia and Theresa.
“The charity that we’re raising money for, a lot of people haven’t heard of, it doesn’t give medical advice but it gives peer support to women who come through cancer,” Theresa said.
Aiming to raise $5000 for the charity, the pair have already reached a total of $3,630 with about four weeks until they set off on their challenge.
To support their fundraiser, go to gofundme.com/f/alps-to-ocean-to-support-women-living-with-cancer
More about Counterpart and its services, can be found by going to counterpart.org.au
