MotoGP and Phillip Island

We have just spent the week at the island, having a look around and going to the MotoGP. As usual, we had an excellent time and the racing was fantastic. Got a few good photos of this years event as well. The weather was bitterly cold for the first two days and on the Sunday we proceeded to get sun burnt! We had grandstand seats on a part of the track called Siberia, it's right at the bottom of the track layout and is right on Bass Strait.

Our rider, Valentino Rossi, didn't do too well but it was good to see so many people out at the track to farewell Casey Stoner. They had in excess of 122,000 people over the weekend, easily the crowd record.

Well, we are sitting at a feecamp just up the road from Phillip Island at the moment, we have a caravan park booked for a few days tomorrow on the Mornington Peninsula. Need to get the car serviced on Friday and visit the youngest child, Letitia, who joined the NAVY a couple of months ago and is undergoing training at HMAS Cerberus that is located on the Mornington Peninsula at Cribb Point. We will visit with her on the weekend to see how she is going.

Time to find some work soon!

Marlay Point, Lake Wellington.

Our lounge room at the moment.

Here We Are In Victoria.

We moved our way down out of the snow to the coast of Victoria through Cooma, Bombala then to Cann River. From Cann River we made our way West to Lakes Entrance where we stayed for a couple if days in a caravan park to do a bit of washing and shopping for food. Lakes Entrance is a fishing town with the esplinade full of fishing vessels, we had a great look around.

At the moment we are just outside of Sale camped at Marlay Point on lake Welington. Lovely spot, so we have decided to stay here for a few days.

Jindabyne and the Snowfields.

Once in Jindabyne we booked a caravan park for a couple of days to do some washing and spend a day in the snowfields. The day we set up in the caravan park it decided to snow. Pretty cool!!

The next day we hired some snow gear and a couple of toboggans and headed for the snowfields. We visited Charlottes Pass, Smiggins Holes and Thredbo. Charlottes pass was blowing a gale as it was the highest.

We had a great day at Perisher with the place to ourselves. All the crowds were gone and there was barely a soul in the place. So we had the pick of the hills and settled in to do a bit of tobogganing. After that we headed for Thredbo to catch the chairlift up the mountain to a cafe, the highest in Australia at 1935m, and have lunch.

We had an excellent day. Tomorrow is off to Cann River and out of the high country.

On The Way to Jindabyne

After we left Bathurst we headed for Wagga Wagga on the way to Jindabyne. The track we chose was through Cowra, Young, Cootamundra and finally into Wagga. We had a look at the RAAF Base Wagga museum where I did my Airforce training. I relived some memories there!

Onto Young, an old gold mine at Adelong and then to Tumut. The gold mine ruins were fascinating, a good time was had looking through the area.

Tumut is just outside Kosciuszko National Park where we planned to stay at a free camp. We weren't disappointed as the free camp was on the banks of Blowering Resivour, Just inside the north part of Kosciuszko Park.

Up and over the mountains on the Snowy Mountains Highway and onto Jindabyne. As we headed over the mountains it started to snow. As we got higher the dusting of snow got thicker and thicker. Good times!!

50th Anniversary Bathurst 1000 Race

We have just completed a great weekend at the Bathurst races. This year was the 50th anniversary of the event and it didn't let us down. There was heaps to see and do in the 3 days we spent on the track. They had over 200,000 people in the 4 days!!

We arrived in Bathurst on the Thursday afternoon and went out to have a quick look and get our bearings. Our accommodation whilst in Bathurst was at the Bathurst Sheep and Cattle Drome, a farm stay of sorts. The property we stayed on was great, even the other guests (V8 diehards) were pretty well behaved as well.

 
Friday we went out to the track to have a good look around before the crowds turned up. We were wrong, there were heaps of people there! The program the V8 guys put on was excellent. One of my favorite parts was they ran a great selection of cars from the past around the track. It bought back some great memories of watching the race as a kid and a real treat to see them running.

We had paddock passes so we went and had a look at the back of the pits and the massive trucks these teams turn up in. It was interesting just to watch how each of the teams run their business, glad we got the passes.

Saturday was spent up the top of Mount Panorama watching most of the programme, taking photos then headed down to watch the top 10 shootout from the stands. The tickets we ended up getting for the stands weren't the best, but live and learn hey?

Sunday we settled into the seat, watched the race and wandered to different vantage points around the bottom of the track. It was a great race to cap off the 50th year celebrations. We had an excellent time at Bathurst topped off by doing a few laps of the circuit this morning in the cruiser. We had a ball.

We leave tomorrow on our way to Phillip Island for the MotoGP in a couple of weeks. We have decided to travel down over the snowies to Eden on the coast and follow the coast to the island. Hoping to still see some snow in Kosciusko National Park.

On The Way To Bathurst

Trace and I finally hit the road this morning on the road to Bathurst and to watch the V8 car races. The delay was that I had been offered a job out west at Injune, near Roma, as a drillers offsider. I went into Caboolture to talk with the guys that are running the camp and project. Turns out the deal was not as sweet as it was made out to be and I passed it up. More to life than money heh?

So we are sitting at a free camp just outside of Goondawindi and before Moree for the night. Up early to get going in the morning and hopefully be in Bathurst after lunch. Out to the track to do a bit of famil for the weekend. :-)

It was good catching up with everyone in Brisbane, you know who you are, and look forward to catching up again sometime. For now we are going to continue down to Melbourne after Bathurst to watch the MotoGP and get some work in VIC. We have not spent too much time in Victoria and look forward to having a good look around.

That's about it for now, will update with some pics of Bathurst.