Whiskey Foxtrot Sierra

Right there it is then: our little plane. Tiger Bob flew it over from Scone to Lilydale (near Melbourne). A 5 hour flight but he's found it! Still no sign of the Judge yet (he did call by the way). Our theory is that he is imaginary (like Charlie's Angels). Although we did spot him on the internet, fully dressed up with wig and all that milaky.

We arranged accomodation for Bob and went out for a meal and drinks. Bob's got a lot of good stories (about the Judge) and advised about 3 million flying trips. Well, allright then, just the one story about the Judge: a suspect gets 25 years gaol. Suspect: 'but I might not live that long anymore'. Judge: 'well I suggest you do your very best then!'.

After a few hectic days (the aviation authorities here require a complete flight review), Peter managed to get signed-off to go flying. A small test flight to start with, over the Dandenong Ranges. Turns out to be rather windy and bumpy. Annet couldn't make any time to look at the map or make photo's because she's too busy to keep her stomach in check and Peter has got his hands full keeping the plane under control. Nice start, but we managed to land safely and are already busy planning our next flight.

Watch this space...

Milbun is great!

Some Europeans think that the city is called Melbourne, but true Ozzies know it's Milbun. Just pronounce Melbouuurrne once and they know where you're not from!

Anyway, so back from Perth, we head for our, by now familiar, campsite in Healesville, where the good old faithfull teardrop awaits us. After the nightflight we need a morning nap, and next day we're ready for Milbun. A supadoopa luxury campside at half an hour from the city centre by bus. CBD still has everything we liked the first time around (in 2001) already. Old buildings and churches next to new skyscrapers, shops, pubs and offices all mixed up which makes it a really special city. St Kilda, a suburb on the coast, is still a very good spot for a Sunday afternoon drink and the shopping centre seems never ending. Summarized: we do like Milbun!

An hour east of CBD (Healesville), you'll find beautifull hills whilst the city itself is on the coast. Nice combi. Even further East you can go skiing, it seems.
Furthermore, Melbourne (mainly East side) is the centre of the automotive industry.

Our discission is made: we're gonna settle down here.

Australia Day

A long time ago, on 26th January, the ‘First Fleet’ with the English first prisoners arrived at Sydney. This is still an annual celebration. We decided to spend this day with locals in a small village. So first up to York for the traditional ‘free breakfast’. York turned out to be a very nice village indeed and the sausage/egg/bacon sandwich was exceptionally good. After that of course, we inspected the local prison and did a miniature tour around the village, where there is a lot of basically ‘nothing’.

Next we headed for an, if possible, even smaller village: Greenhills (population 10?), two farms and a pub/hotel. This was apparently the place to be: the yearly performance of 'Bush Balladeer Buzzer' commenced from noon and lasted till late. We’re chatting with all the 'locals' (and Buzzer) – it was a busy party (no, really!), struggling out of the pub at midnight, straight into our little tent that we had set up in the back yard.

Back in Perth we treated ourselves to a couple of nights in a hotel … which turned out to be not a bad idea given the heatwave (42C daytime, 24C at night).

Large and small

Good thing we've chosen to take a line-bird to fly to Perth as it is a 4 hour domestic flight. Before checking out the city itself, we first set of for South WA. The coast itself is pretty but it's contaminated with industry and factories and new developments for houses are everywhere. These new houses are built on, for Australian standards, very small pieces of land. That doesn't make the scenery very attractive.

Not until another 500km South, it starts to get very beautiful and spacious again: a lovely mountain and forrest scenery with impressively high trees (60m). That's when you get that Ozzie laidback feeling back again. The highest tree of all (the ‘giant tingle tree’) is so tall and wide that in the old days everyone took a picture of it with a car parked inside the tree. Due to all this the poor bugger collapsed but you can still see the remainder.

To prevent the roots from damage, an impressive ‘tree top walk’ has been developed, which takes you on a walk through (guess what) the treetops up to 40m high.

Southern W.A. (Western Australia) proves to be a bit colder than what we got used to. Perhaps we should have known this when they supplied us with wood for a campfire at the (fantastic) campsite....after a sleepless night we did reluctantly buy sleeping bags.

Well after this short tourist trip it's up to Perth.