March, 3rd

Timing is everything! Picture us in our car - standing at an intersection some miles away from the Serpentine airfield and a truck comes heading in our direction - carrying our two microlights. That has to be a good omen. All the truck-driver wanted is to unload, get the hell out of there and come back tomorrow to pick up the empty container. We managed to talk him into making just a fifteen minutes rest - and that's all the time it took us to get our trikes and the wings out. It worked like a charm.

Unfortunately, our Internet-access by Telekom didn't do as well. It took us three attempts just to get our e-mails last night and when we tried to send our first report back home last night, the program kept asking for our password. There we were entering and re-entering the same letters to no avail. Our luck has it that there is an Internet-Cafe right around the corner of our hotel. So we did finally manage to send our story to Germany after all. Now we asked Garry, our friend and helper in Melbourne to set up an "Ozmail"-Account for us and we will use an Australian provider from now on. Which won't be an easy task either as it can't be set up when you're at an internet-cafe and you're calling from mobile-phone.

Back to Serpentine. The airfield is about an hour drive south of Perth. We passed some greeneries, horse ranches and cattle ranches. Not too many people around herre. The airfield has a 1200 meter long concrete runway and you see lots of hangars shaded by trees. Last weekend they had a little flightshow with a Fly in and thousands of spectators. But today everything is back to normal again. As does almost every airfield we know, Serpentine has some of these typical 'retired' pilots. Men who found time to enjoy there hobby after they retired. Ian is one of them. His latest project is to put a new coat of paint on a Cessna 172, with a friend's help, that is. Ian invited us over for tea and tomorrow, before we stay at the airfield overnight, Ian and his wife will have a Barbecue for us.

Dennis Gorton accompanied us to Serpentine today and gave us some very helpful instructions on how to conduct ourselves while flying in Australia. He didn't have much time because it is his wife's birthday today. As it appeared, Dennis remembered that only yesterday... We had already bought the latest maps in Jandakot on our way to Serpentine. Jandakot is home to all pilots around Perth. Lots of aviation schools, maintenance-companies and everything that has to do with aviation.

To bad that we'll have to leave Perth tomorrow. This city does have a lot of charms. The downtown district has over fifty restaurants one next to the other. "These are dangerous grounds for heavy microlighters" (said Gisela). "No bodyjokes", (said Wolfgang)...