Melbourne day 6 - Royal Australian Air Force Museum
Thursday is the day Julianne and I split up; Julianne is going to the Australian Tapestry Workshop a place she was very keen to visit whereas I wanted to visit the Royal Australian Air Force Museum at Point Cook with the boys.
I dropped Julianne off at the train station as the tapestry workshop is near the city and easy to get to by public transport while the boys and headed off to the RAAF Museum.
What was really exciting was for the first time Robin was the navigator, normally I drive and Julianne navigates but with her on the train it was time for ten year old Robin to take over. So he was given the phone and using Google directions he verbally directed me to Point Cook making sure I took the right turns.
The museum is actually on a RAAF airbase, so I had to sign in through security to get onto the base which was amusing. This the oldest airbase in Australia with lots of history, and the museum is full of early aircraft and some modern ones as well.
The boys and I spent several hours looking at the old airplanes, and then the one really cool and exciting part of the visit happened – an air display. Several times during the week they actually get one of their old planes old and take it for an interactive flight – all of which is free! Normally these old planes are just for viewing by here they have a number which are still operational.
The display is not long, only around 15 – 20 minutes but they have 9 different aircraft flying and today was an CT4A, which was the training aircraft between 1975 and 1992 within the RAAF.
The aircraft is parked out the front of the audience and we get to speak to the volunteers who maintain it, and the pilot before he takes of and does a number of aerobatic manoeuvres, before he lands and spends a few more minutes answering questions. A fantastic small personal interactive flying display which costs no money – I really enjoyed this experience.
As someone who is into aviation, this was a great way to spend the day.
After the flying display the boys and I walked around the last part of the museum, which had the jet bomber aircraft such as an F4 Phantom, F-111 along with a large Canberra A84.
We then headed back to the car and got distracted on leaving by a park and spent 30 minutes exploring the Point Cook Coastal Park picnic area before heading back to Luke’s place with Robin navigating again.
We arrived back in Melton at 4pm just as a text from Julianne arrived saying that she was due into Melton train station at 4.15, which was great timing and a complete fluke.
It turns out that Julianne had a good day as well visiting the Australian tapestry workshop and her public transport journey had no dramas.
And my good friend Walter came round that evening so it was great to catch-up with him and find out where he was at.
After tea that night, Julianne was not feeling very well so I contacted the local medical centre and found out that New Zealander’s could visit the doctor for free. So I took Julianne down and within 90 minutes she had seen a doctor – and we had picked up medicine from a local chemist all after 8pm on a Friday night. In Auckland it would have taken much longer – fantastic service here in Melbourne.