Another day drive

We didn't really have anything planned today for this trip other than headed out in the general direction of Castlemaine,  or Daylesford. As it turns out we drove through both but didn't really stop much in either. 

To give you an idea of how we decide to travel have a look at the map. We traveled in a clockwise motion. 

That's because as we are driving along there was this really slow car in front of us.  When I say in front of us I mean 6 or 7 cars in front of us with at least that many behind us.  As we filed it into the tiny town of Bullarto we decided that rather than continuing on behind it we would make a turn and go look at an old church we once thought of buying to see what the new owners had done.  They haven't done much at all but more importantly we stumbled across the 20th Annual Bullarto Vintage Tractor Pull. 

These are great fun to watch and at the same time to admire.  There was some very old machinery on show and competing,. The 2 guys doing the commentating didn't look much younger than some of the tractors either. 

We arrived and the pull was already in action. This is in one of the earlier classes, I think it is pulling easier 3.5 or 4 ton.  They full the track on the speed with water to different weights depending on the class.  The track them slide along the sled towards the front as it is pulled along, making it harder for the tractor the further out pulls out.  The idea is to make it to the end which is 100 yards,  no metrics here. 

During the lunch break they have a parade of the tractors competing.  The 3 here were obviously a
family with Mum on front followed by the little one with the last one driven by a son wearing a gas mask! Hopefully all in good fun and not really need. 

Apart from the tractor Pull there was a car Club show,  a word chop competition and at lunch time a"ladies" phone throwing competition.  The phone throwing was funny with only a couple getting the hand of it.  One woman managed to land it right next to me and I was a fair way down.  Another managed to hit someone in the crowd which was funny for every one else. 

They put on a pretty good show. 

We stayed for about 3 hours and then moved on.  Round 2 of the pulls were about to start so we thought a good time to go.  We did make it to Castlemaine eventually via Daylesford and then around via Bendigo and home. 

100 years of military aviation in Australia

Yesterday the whole family travelled down to Point Cook (about 45 mins on the ring road) to the RAAF Williams Point Cook Air Base. There were so many rare old "warbirds" flying that Nicholas and I had to go and we dragged everyone else with us. Warbirds BTW is the expression used to describe when a military plane has gone on to find a use in civilian aviation. Nicholas and I have been playing a game lately called War Thunder where you fly WW1 and WW2 planes against other people. So it was really something to go and see some of them actually in flight. There were some very rare old planes still flying.

This is Nicholas in front of the PBY Catalina. This is one of the planes we both enjoy in the game and yes we did get to see it fly. It looks like a giant albatross in the air drifting around. That one comes later.

This probably the most beautiful looking plane there. It is the Stinson Gullwing made in 1935. There is over 4000hrs of repair work done it. It was just so nice.

Some of our favourite fighters the Mustang (front) and the Kittyhawk (Back).

They did have some really fast planes as well. This is the new F35 Lightning III fighter that the RAAF are purchasing. We didn't get to see this one in flight, shame.

At the other end of the spectrum, they had a Bristol BoxKite replica. One of only 4 flying in the world. It did fly on the day but we were too late to see it., it flew around 8am as it needs almost no wind or it gets blown over.

This is the Boomerang. These were built in Australia based on the American T6 Harvard however shortened both in width and length and a different motor. Great to watch. Nicholas flies one in War Thunder.

This is everyone's favourite the Spitfire (foreground) with the CT-4 reconnaissance (middle) and a KittyHawk (back).

This is one of the really rare planes on show. It is the Lockheed Hudson and is the only flying example left in the world. When it went up it did so with a Boomerang and a KittyHawk as escorts.

I said you'd see the Catalina flying. Here it is taking off, it really does look like a boat with a big wing on top. By the way it is painted black as they were known as the Black Cats and they flew mostly night missions and because of their long range (flying sometimes between 12 and 24 hours) flew bombing missions to Hong Kong and other distant places. It was a Catalina that was the first allied air plane shot down in the Pacific Region in WW2.

This was also a magnificently turned out machine, it is the Stagger Wing. 

If I work out how to add video I will put a couple of short ones up.

All the above photos were taken on either my or Nicholas' phone's camera.