My Little Ship II

A few days ago I blipped 'old & new fire motors' photographed by my father's brother, Sid. Seems (written on the reverse) on the same day in Cloncurry, Queensland he photographed the plane of the Australian aviatrix, Mrs Bonney...a Klemm Eagle VH-UTI.

However, writing on 31 May in Cairo, Mrs Bonney 'at last in Cairo' attests she will be in Capetown in a fortnight. Mrs Bonney's Picnic in the Garden of Eden. I sure btw enjoyed her description of eyeing a handsomely attired man up and down. So risque. Mrs Bonney thought she must have amused him.

Here an historian recounts Mrs Bonney faced bureaucratic delay, sandstorms, damage to her plane, and flew from Khartoum headed for Capetown on 10 July...and that it would 'take the never-give-up airwoman another 5 weeks to reach Capetown'.

Mrs Bonney landed in Capetown 'today [18 August] at 4.45 p.m after her arduous 4 months flight of 14,000 miles from Australia'. She had left Archerfield airport in Brisbane, Queensland at 8 a.m. on 9 April. Mrs Bonney returned to Australia on a steamer.

Seems little doubt Mrs Bonney was not in Cloncurry on the date written on the back of the photo.

The apparent oversight of my uncle's dating the photograph not according to the date of the historic incident, but some other significance has me stymied.

Found here: Lot 407 an envelope signed by Mrs Bonney postmarked in Australia 8 April 1937 and Capetown 19 August 1937, the day before Mrs Bonney left Australia and the day after she landed in Capetown.

Interesting that the site of the address on the envelope is currently an inner city retail premises in Brisbane and wonder what commercial premises were there in 1937...and so on... :)

Here is a small history of the Klemm Eagle VH-UTI

Here. Mrs Bonney did land in Cloncurry when she flew Australia-England in 1933. Different plane. A picture of Mrs. Bonney shows her beside a DH60 Gipsy Moth VH-UPV (Figure 2) that was her first plane, "My Little Ship".