Avalon Air Show

Back to Geelong for some car parts, Tina needed a haircut and my search for shoes. The Tojo has always had a squeaky barn door problem and net soon confimed this to be a common prob. Over the last year I have tried a few things but the fix is 2 new parts. Toyota dealer could get 1 in 2 days and the other form Japan but 2 weeks. After a little negotiation we arranged postage. Off to the haircut a bargain at $15 and not only did I get some shoes I picked up a hair shaver for Jason(the first one I got him for Christmas was crap). Then the difficult stuff beer, Vic has expensive beer if you don’t want to by VB or Carlton Draught. Finally got it sorted
We are staying at Lara sportsground near Avalon Airport for the International Air show. We are Glen’s ground crew he has 2 Jabiru’s and there is camping there with free shuttles to and from the Air show for 4 days. Mel flew in a normal plane and Glen & Carl flew over in one of the Jabiru’s ( for those who don’t know that stands for bloody small plane) and we all met at the campground and off to the Shell club for Tea. It was good to see family again. Did some footy training on the way to the club and got offered a Guernsey. Just one kick was all it took. We had great steaks for $11 some beers.

Up early the oval and campervan area was pretty full and they had great showers in the footy club. Took the shuttle over to the AS( I’m fairly sick of writing Air Show) and met up with M&G (also abbreviated) There are lots of planes little tiny ones with tarps as wings right up to C17, Hercules, 777 and other as well as jet fighters. We got to look in so many planes right up close touch and feel. There is every aviation & Military supplier here.
Then there are the flying displays they were just awesome, where do I start they had the smallest aerobatic planes to the large bulk carriers, all the jets F1-11’s, FA18’s,
The B1 bomber and so many others. The Jets are just so unbelievable they can turn in the smallest circle and one went straight up to 5km in what seemed like 3 secs. All this maybe 100m odd from the runway. None stop low passes with some great sounds. Carl & Glen were like Tina & I at a musical festival or a child at the show. It was a very long day and the night session was spoiled by late shitty weather. We took the shuttle back to the campground which had got even more packed.

My car part had arrived and this time Mel needed a haircut so back to Geelong. It is quite crappy this morning very overcast and raining. Haircut good, car part in hand back to the AS. The carpark is wet and muddy and lots of people have left their lights on.
We looked around the military displays a lot again today, I have deliberately left out the Tina falling off the Big Army tank story but for those of you’s who were there I milked it the entire day in a search for laughs. The military stuff is cool and the Australian defence force have some great stuff. It looks really cool and they market it well but really they teach you to kill people and most ,likely get killed yourself. Anyway I’ told old I can’t even join if I wanted to. We saw some more aerial displays and headed over to the Auditorium for awards for plane displays. Andy Thomas was to speak. This was cool free beer & food. All was going well and we ware talking to some Singapore Air force Personel when the call for the military to leave came out, then this big nasty sergeant came in and yelled at them and they all ran out. We didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then finally we were told that a storm had just blown through and planes had been turned over as well as tents. Well that got rid of most of the rest of the people in the room and a bloody .lot of open beers and food. 200 became 20 and the waitresses begged us to eat more food and we drank as many “VB”s as we could. We met some people including Joshua and Damien, Joshua’s home made plane died and he had to crash land it on the beach on the way down from Bega in NSW.
Eventually they cleared all the food and beer Glen’s plane was not damaged and we headed off. There was some serious damage to tents and displays so we took the shuttle back and headed to the Lara Sports club for some more ales. We Joshua and Damien as well as some others from the AS.
That night there was an explosion a fight, 50 rampant teenagers and god knows what else going on outside that night but apart from all the noise no drama for us.

Very wet but no tent damage for us at the campground. We took Mel wine tasting and I drove us all around Geelong districts in the XR6, nice car for a Ford. We met Glen & Carl back at the Sports club in the arvo and said our goodbyes. We bumbed around in the arvo and had a great Pizza for tea. We were very tired and crashed out straight after.
A special thanks to Glen & Mel for getting us camping and special access tickets to the Air show for the 4 days we enjoyed not only the Air show but hanging out as well.
“Thanks Guys”