Looking skywards

was what everyone was doing a few weekends ago at Avalon. The International Airshow was in town again and we joined the hundreds of people to see what was on offer.
The weather had been bad on Saturday so Sunday was busier than we expected as the crowds swelled. We watched the displays of awesome power shown by the Military Jets and the dare devil flying of the smaller planes kept everyone on the edge of their seats with their loop the loops and upside down displays. On a sad note 2 of the pilots we had seen last time had been killed during the previous year as they trained to perfect their death defying routines. One just 6 weeks earlier. There was a memorial flypast in their honour.

The weather did play a part in the day. With very strong fronts passing through bringing strong winds, there were quite a few aircraft unable to fly on the day. The farewell performance of the F1 11's was one casualty of the day, unable to cope with the strong winds and wet runways,the highly anticipated Dump & Burn routine was cancelled at the 11th hour. We did get to see the F16 & F18's though. They are almost as spectacular and certainly just as loud. It was too windy for the helicopters as well and though the glider got up & away it was a real challenge to perform as he should have.


The weather improved again the next week, just in time for two surprise visitors to Melbourne. We had dinner with Sue on Tuesday night at Fed Square, yummy Chinese to be had at Bokchoy Tang. Wednesday night it was Marg's turn to surprise me and we had dinner at Bar Lourinha, a great little tapas place in Little Collins St. It was great to see them both and catch up with all their respective news from Perth. A 50th birthday party for our friend Toni was celebrated at the Cricketers Arms on Saturday night. This is a really old pub in Port Melbourne and we had a great night catching up with friends and meeting some new ones.

The next weekend we decided to stick with the flying theme, but the feathered type instead. Bill had found out about the wetlands at the Melbourne Water Treatment Plant near Werribee so we took off on the Sunday for a little look. Apart from one smelly experience, I guess you had to expect it, the rest of the wetlands were amazing. Absolutely alive with bird life of all sorts, large & small. We managed to entertain ourselves for hours and did not get home until almost 8pm. Not bad for just a quick look eh! And we still only covered about half the area. We will go back and check out the other areas.

This weekend saw the Grand Prix back in town and we listened to the exciting screech of racing for 4 days. Melbourne had turned Red for the week leading up to the big race. Ferrari always seems to the main attraction. The city was super busy with fans arriving to watch the opening race of the season at Albert Park. The first twilight race was a hit I believe, and even though we decided we would spend our day wandering around the Botanic Gardens instead we could still hear every turn.

Even with the lack of rain the gardens were lovely, though the ponds are almost dried up in some places. Hopefully we will get some real rain soon. I don't think that some of the trees will survive too many more years of no rain. The Ian Potter Children's Garden was just lovley but we couldn't go mad with the camera because of all the little one's in there. Very sad sign of the times. Still, I did manage to get our Magic Pudding Sculpture.

So that's all our wanderings for the last few weeks. A very mixed bag, from thundering air planes to tranquil duck ponds. We have Mum's birthday to look forward to on Saturday night with Maree, Jarrod & Aaron, so that should keep us out of mischief for this week.

until next time...........