March, 24th

Melbourne

In the early morning hours we watch cirrus-clouds forming a veil in the sky and at eight o'clock - right in time for our take-off - the winds start to blow. Garry had already called and warned us about a tropical storm passing through that had caused considerable damage on the West Coast.

We were lucky, the remainder of the storm was coming in our direction very slowly, but the winds changed to Northeast. This ment for us that we were flying 145 k/h over ground. We were so fast that we were able to skip two fuel-stops and made it to Bendigo in one stretch and in 2:10 hours. A quick re-fueling and a little wait to warm us up and off we went to the next one-hour flight to Mangalore.

Mangalore is a rather huge airport and hosts a very popular airshow every year at Easter. At that time we hope to be in Narromine, at the meeting of the Australian Ultralight Federation (AUF). Garry had organized for us to park our trikes in the hangar of a microlight-pilot who had come to Australia from the Netherlands. About an hour later Garry came to pick us up and took us home to his new house - about an hours drive from Melbourne in a very hilly area.

The house is surrounded by large trees. Some of the outside and inside walls are made of granite, the other walls are built with huge, handmade tiles of a clay and straw mixture.It has a very high and pointed roof on top. All together it makes for a very unusual and beautiful house in a breathtaking surrounding. We will probably stay here 'till Sunday. Later that evening the wind picks up quite a bit and we listen to the tree-branches pounding the roof. Good thing our trikes are safe and secure in Toni Witlox's hangar.