Another week and we don't appear any closer to leaving. Sigh so Katrina is getting stuck into the thesis. I in the interest of not getting in her way have continued to explore the sights and sounds of Melbourne.
The theme for this week turned out to be transport, specifically trains, automobiles and planes in that order. Get it another way around and there's a bad movie title there. Although John Candy's best work.
Earlier in the week I hopped a train to Geelong to surprise dad for his birthday. It was his 82nd! So a low key afternoon was spent in Geelong, resulting in a rather late train trip back to Ashburton. All in all a pleasant day.
Then on Tuesday I went to the Fox Classic Car Collection. That's some of the more exotic cars owned by one Lindsay Fox. The museum is housed in the old Queens warehouse just behind Southern Cross Station. Interesting seeing how the warehouse has been made over to accommodate the cars. My previous experiences with the Queens warehouse had been as the Customs uniform store, detained goods repository and boxes and boxes of records to be moved. The building still maintains a lot of its character though the contents are now much more interesting and expensive. Exotic Mercedes, Jag, Porsche and so on vs shelves of turtles, snakes, alcohol and the gun store. Close.... nup the cars win hands down.
One of the things I really liked about the display was that you could walk around most of the cars and see them from all angles. Much more interesting for a museum visitor, In some cases the cars were face out with a rear engine cover open, great being able to see front and rear views. I guess most car designers would tell you that their "art" is meant to be subjected to 360 degree scrutiny.
Amongst the cars in the collection were the Mercedes Von Ribbentrop took to London in 1936 as ambassador, a Beatles limo and too much exoticar to list. But amongst all of that my favourites were the two functional model Rolls Royce cars that an enthusiast made for his grandchildren. Absolutely lovely!
The theme for this week turned out to be transport, specifically trains, automobiles and planes in that order. Get it another way around and there's a bad movie title there. Although John Candy's best work.
Earlier in the week I hopped a train to Geelong to surprise dad for his birthday. It was his 82nd! So a low key afternoon was spent in Geelong, resulting in a rather late train trip back to Ashburton. All in all a pleasant day.
Then on Tuesday I went to the Fox Classic Car Collection. That's some of the more exotic cars owned by one Lindsay Fox. The museum is housed in the old Queens warehouse just behind Southern Cross Station. Interesting seeing how the warehouse has been made over to accommodate the cars. My previous experiences with the Queens warehouse had been as the Customs uniform store, detained goods repository and boxes and boxes of records to be moved. The building still maintains a lot of its character though the contents are now much more interesting and expensive. Exotic Mercedes, Jag, Porsche and so on vs shelves of turtles, snakes, alcohol and the gun store. Close.... nup the cars win hands down.
One of the things I really liked about the display was that you could walk around most of the cars and see them from all angles. Much more interesting for a museum visitor, In some cases the cars were face out with a rear engine cover open, great being able to see front and rear views. I guess most car designers would tell you that their "art" is meant to be subjected to 360 degree scrutiny.
Amongst the cars in the collection were the Mercedes Von Ribbentrop took to London in 1936 as ambassador, a Beatles limo and too much exoticar to list. But amongst all of that my favourites were the two functional model Rolls Royce cars that an enthusiast made for his grandchildren. Absolutely lovely!
Today I indulged myself and went to my first ever flying show! The RAAF Museum at Point Cook had its bi-annual historic flying day. Woot!!! Gave me an excuse to re-visit the museum and then watch and hear a variety of historic planes fly. Unfortunately the wind was so strong that the biplanes couldn't fly, pooh! Had a great time watching as plane after plane took off and stunted overhead. Surprisingly the noise was much less than expected, even when multiple planes were airborne together. The bulk of the planes were WW2 era, running through to the sixties. Just to satisfy anyone that cares, two mustangs, two DC3's, a Yak9, Wirraway, Kittyhawk and a CAC Boomerang all got up and strutted their stuff. Disappointingly no Spitfire. The loudest plane on display was the Sabre, which was also the last. Great day but hot and so windy I could feel the windburn setting in while still there. I don't want to be in my face tomorrow!
Here's a picture of one (just one) of the flight lines - all the planes in the flight lines went up.......
Mind you the week wasn't entirely blokey. I did discover that at some time in the past 20 odd years the State Library of Victoria refurbished the dome over the reading room. Leaks fixed, copper shielding removed and the dome windows now flood the reading room with light at its original design intended. So there are some advantages to modern technology. I took Katrina to the library for that and their two current exhibitions, which are housed in the upper galleries that surround the reading room. The current exhibitions are about the changing face of Victoria and the impact of books through history. For bibliophiles like Katrina and I this was great. Included some works by my favourite engraver - Mr Albrecht Durer. But now for a gratuitous political statement!
Family, vroom on the ground, and vroom vromm in the air, followed by good books. Sounds like a great week.
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