Some really solid adivce here - cheers peeps.
A bit of background first....
Firstly, what I meant as "Rough strips" is that they look rough to me in the pictures that I've seen compared to the normal grass ones that I land on.
Secondly, as I obviously haven't repeated myself enough times, I am Captain Cautious and as an example, if I have the choice between a Bush strip that is 700m and one 30 miles away that is 1000m then I'm going for the longer strip. This holiday is about improving my flying, getting experience and seeing what looks to be a fantastic country. In other words, my b*lls are fine - I'm not out to prove that they are made of steel!
Chimbu chuckles - I wouldn't even think about trying to land at one of those strips, let alone even attempt it at this stage although I hope that one day I'll be good enough to have a stab with a local onboard.
The chap I'm renting from insists that you take a two hour course/check ride and I'm insisting on 4 hours minimum so I hope this puts it into perspective what I'm all about. As I do when sailing, I normally collar the nearest salty old sea dog, buy him a beer and get the inside gen and I'll do the same over there.
As I've been told, most flights in this area are of about 2 hours duration as the most I've done so far is 1 hour I need to get more air time (I sound like a mobile phone salesman here
) amongst other things.
Anyway, minor rant over.
There is some good stuff on here. Stoke looks worth a look as it's not too far from here and is the kind of thing I'm after. As I said before it's easy to do a short(ish) field landing when you've got 700m to play with but the real thing has got to be better.
Cheers All.