Yesterday, Today and Temora

Sally wants one of these bath chairs for her dotage

Ray finding his "farmer" side

Something to lighten your day

An angry Spitfire at Temora Aviation Museum

Tonight's camping spot with a view of the Temora runway

The title, as most of you who know Ray will understand, is a Dad joke!  

We're currently in Temora to visit the Aviation Museum.  Along the way, we also also discovered the very interesting Rural Museum, where we spent the better part of yesterday.  

Our path from our last overnight stop along the highway was through Young, where we visited the Information Bureau, Coles (naturally) and Poppa's Fudge and Jam Factory where we bought wonderful chocolates, cherry tarts and cherry jam.  It isn't yet cherry season here but who's quibbling?  

We only stayed long enough to witness an altercation between 2 police and 2 young men in a red P-plated car near our van.  It was pretty heated and although we sticky-beaked to the best of our abilities, we didn't find out what the problem was.  I guess if you attract the ire of police in a small place, look out!

Today we headed for the famous Aviation Museum, which has one of the world's finest collection of flying historic aircraft.  The Museum was established in 1999, and includes the only flying Spitfire and the nation's oldest airworthy Tiger Moth.  The collection also includes CA-16 Wirraway, Ryan STM S2, Gloster Meteor F8, Canberra Bomber, DH-115 Vampire T35, Cessna A37B Dragonfly, CA13 Boomerang, Lockheed Hudson, RAAF CA-27 Sabre, T-28D Trojan and Cessna O-1G Birddog

The Museum hosts regular flying weekends throughout the year.  Unfortunately we were once again here on the "off" weekend, but the friendly and knowledgeable volunteers in the Museum made us welcome and gave us all the information we didn't know we needed.  There are also lots of personal histories on the people who flew these planes, and the various theatres of war they served in.  We stayed longer than we thought we would, and then found ourselves a camping spot next to the runway where we can watch the couple of small planes out for the afternoon.

It's an interesting concept, but there's an estate being built along the road to the airport (in fact right next to it), where houses are being constructed (many already living there), but each house has a much larger hangar out the back where people park their planes when they're not out flying!   There's a wide road leading from the hangars down to the runway, and it seems that taxi-ing planes have right of way over traffic!!    Very sensible really if you like to fly your plane often.  No long drive to the airport, no queues and, it seems, no air-traffic control (thought I'm sure that happens at peak times).  One of the volunteers lives 10km out of town on a 300 hectare farm, and says he usually flies in instead of driving!

We've really enjoyed our stay at Temora, and have met many people who are happy to have moved here, and praised the locals for embracing the airport instead of carping.  The extra visitors brought by the Aviation Museum no doubt contribute handsomely to the coffers as well.

We'll have a quiet night here then get up and consult the map as to whither we go tomorrow.

Just to finish off, I have to reproduce some advice to pilots, even though I know only one (or two) of you are one!!!

Safety tips for pilots with their heads in the clouds.

1.  Every take off is optional.  Every landing is mandatory.

2.  If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger.  If you pull the stick back, they get smaller.  That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.

3.  Flying isn't dangerous.  Crashing is what's dangerous.

4.  The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.  The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool.  When it stops, you an actually watch the pilot start sweating.

5.  A "good" landing is one from which you can walk away.  A "great" landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

6.  You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

7.  Stay out of the clouds, the silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another aeroplane travelling in the opposite direction.  Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide in clouds.

8.  If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not all they should be.

9.  In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminium going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

10.  Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take-offs you've made.

11.  It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

With that we will sign off and hope that you all manage to follow Rule No. 11.

Sally and Ray