As they wheeled over the town they waved a last farewell to the hundreds below, whose forms they could just make out in the fast-gathering darkness.  Then, turning off straight east, they flew over the dark-green canopy of eucalyptus forests of fertile Arnhem Land, and crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria in the full darkness of the night.  When they passed over Cape York peninsula, Tom was at the throttle, and the younger boys had been asleep for a number of hours. They had now left the whole continent of Australia behind them, and were facing the broad wastes of the Pacific.