Brisbane Soiree (27th Dec 18 - 9th January)
We departed Melbourne on the 27th December and had a wonderful road trip up to visit Mustang Sally which is currently berthed at East Coast Marina in Manly Brisbane.
We spent a few days driving up as we had a couple of stops to make.
The first was to the Temora Warbird Museum which was established by David Lowy in 2000.
We spent a very interesting wandering around the various exhibits and planes. One of the amazing thing is that all the aircraft are maintained in flying order and they have fairly regular flying days and exhibitions which we would love to see if and when we are up this way again. The planes range for the good ol' Tiger Moth through to the Spitfire and even some more recent jet planes such as the Sabre.
Mark who has an aviation background in Gliders just loved it and even for a rank amateur like myself was very interesting.
We spent the night in West Wyalong - not much to say about West Wyalong apart from it was hot!!
The next morning we ventured up to Dubbo with an obligatory stop at the Parkes Observatory and then onto the gold mine at Peak Hill.
We arrived at Taronga Open Plain Zoo (Dubbo) at around lunch time and now wished we had more time as there is soooooo much to see. We would have like to walk or cycle around the many exhibits but both time and heat prevented this so we opted for the car although we did seem to get in our fair share of walking anyhow. Will definitely be planning a trip here again.
Dubbo was a much nicer stop for our second night. The motel was not far from the town centre so we went for a bit of an explore around town before dining out in one of the local pubs. All in all a very pleasant stop over.
Saturday the 29th it was the final push to Manly and we made pretty good time arriving late in the afternoon and settled back into life on board even if it is only for a couple of weeks and in the marina at Manly.
During our stay we caught up with our good friends Oscar and Graciella from Zenitude who were parked just on the next finger to us and enjoyed an excellent NYE with them at the local Irish Pub with a local couple playing some excellent music. We celebrated the start of 2019 over a couple of glasses of Moet back on Zenitude and watched the local fireworks off the back of the boat.
We also did a few boat jobs during our stay which included some work on the much used and loved autohelm. As with all these things you always seem to end up fixing one thing to find another and have discovered that the steering mechanism also needs a bit of TLC. We installed a replacement instrument, changed over the grille on the Oven which didn't enjoy its time using butane in Fiji, bought a new comfy seat as we wore the old one out and painted the toilet seat as were also starting to wear it out. As Mark says it is a good thing when you actually get to wear stuff out - at least it means it is being used 😊
As we had a car for our stay we tried to do things that we normally can't get to so we drove down to the Gold Coast to watch the BBL cricket at Metricon Stadium at the Gold Coast. We saw the Brisbane Heat take on the Sydney Sixers so as keen supporters of the Sixers Oscar and Graciella joined us for the game and were very pleased they came as they got to watch the Sixers win the game. We also made it to the movies which is something we normally don't even get to do much when at home.
During our time in Manly we were hoping to get in lots and lots of kite surfing with the notorious NE winds that blow - well that didn't happen and we have had beautiful calm and sunny weather for most of our stay. We did get out on a couple of occasions so shouldn't complain too much as the conditions were pretty nice with calm and very warm water.
Unfortunately the photographer took a bit of a holiday for the second part of our trip so have no photos to show you of our time in Manly which is a bit disappointing but we did get some pretty amazing shots of the animals at the zoo.
Tomorrow (Wednesday 9th) it is back in the car for the long drive home again with a stop over in Dubbo and expect to arrive home late on Friday evening - possibly in time to have dinner at the club after the Lady Skipper's Race
We spent a few days driving up as we had a couple of stops to make.
The first was to the Temora Warbird Museum which was established by David Lowy in 2000.We spent a very interesting wandering around the various exhibits and planes. One of the amazing thing is that all the aircraft are maintained in flying order and they have fairly regular flying days and exhibitions which we would love to see if and when we are up this way again. The planes range for the good ol' Tiger Moth through to the Spitfire and even some more recent jet planes such as the Sabre.
Mark who has an aviation background in Gliders just loved it and even for a rank amateur like myself was very interesting.
The next morning we ventured up to Dubbo with an obligatory stop at the Parkes Observatory and then onto the gold mine at Peak Hill.
We arrived at Taronga Open Plain Zoo (Dubbo) at around lunch time and now wished we had more time as there is soooooo much to see. We would have like to walk or cycle around the many exhibits but both time and heat prevented this so we opted for the car although we did seem to get in our fair share of walking anyhow. Will definitely be planning a trip here again.
Saturday the 29th it was the final push to Manly and we made pretty good time arriving late in the afternoon and settled back into life on board even if it is only for a couple of weeks and in the marina at Manly.
During our stay we caught up with our good friends Oscar and Graciella from Zenitude who were parked just on the next finger to us and enjoyed an excellent NYE with them at the local Irish Pub with a local couple playing some excellent music. We celebrated the start of 2019 over a couple of glasses of Moet back on Zenitude and watched the local fireworks off the back of the boat.
We also did a few boat jobs during our stay which included some work on the much used and loved autohelm. As with all these things you always seem to end up fixing one thing to find another and have discovered that the steering mechanism also needs a bit of TLC. We installed a replacement instrument, changed over the grille on the Oven which didn't enjoy its time using butane in Fiji, bought a new comfy seat as we wore the old one out and painted the toilet seat as were also starting to wear it out. As Mark says it is a good thing when you actually get to wear stuff out - at least it means it is being used 😊
As we had a car for our stay we tried to do things that we normally can't get to so we drove down to the Gold Coast to watch the BBL cricket at Metricon Stadium at the Gold Coast. We saw the Brisbane Heat take on the Sydney Sixers so as keen supporters of the Sixers Oscar and Graciella joined us for the game and were very pleased they came as they got to watch the Sixers win the game. We also made it to the movies which is something we normally don't even get to do much when at home.
During our time in Manly we were hoping to get in lots and lots of kite surfing with the notorious NE winds that blow - well that didn't happen and we have had beautiful calm and sunny weather for most of our stay. We did get out on a couple of occasions so shouldn't complain too much as the conditions were pretty nice with calm and very warm water.
Unfortunately the photographer took a bit of a holiday for the second part of our trip so have no photos to show you of our time in Manly which is a bit disappointing but we did get some pretty amazing shots of the animals at the zoo.
Tomorrow (Wednesday 9th) it is back in the car for the long drive home again with a stop over in Dubbo and expect to arrive home late on Friday evening - possibly in time to have dinner at the club after the Lady Skipper's Race
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