A great Australia Day out

Today was a very special day. Thanks to the huge array of great things there are to do in Australia (and particularly Melbourne) on Australia Day, we were able to sample a free couple.

First stop was the RACV Australia Day Picnic and Federation Vehicle Display. What that means is something in the order of 500 cars, bikes and trucks of all kinds back to the earliest days.

The bling alone is something else.
Once, car makers put out Art Deco design for the masses. Even the door handles were attractive grace-notes.
Even sometimes outclassing the sculpture. The Picnic is in the Kings Domain Gardens, a great venue.
My friend Brad's Merc (a topic we will return to in a later post). We stopped for a bite with Brad and Kistin and their friends, under a tree on the grass and watched the passing scene.

Self-portrait in a wing mirror.

And a terrific shot by Bev.

Fred Flinstone minds the dash of an Austin aesthetic.

While the kids and families had a blast. There is an adult in the Canadian Military Pattern truck, we think! (We saw so many cool cars and stuff we'll be returning to this in a later post or two. This is just a taster.)


That wasn't all. There was a RACV/AFA 'Flyball' competition which Bev particularly enjoyed. As Bev's photo shows, the lady's top says, 'we have hot dogs' Some of the little guys (one Jack Russell just launched) lapped the bigger ones.

We'd noted that there was a tall ships gathering on the other side of the bay at Williamstown. So we thought; "why not?" and decided to cruise across and have a look. We were very glad we did.

There was Melbourne's own Enterprize replica, built here as a copy of the first ship to settle the area.

And visiting was the 1903 Alma Doepel, which has moved to Melbourne from Port Macquarie for a major refit at Docklands over the next year or two. I think we'll be seeing a bit more of her.

Meanwhile a young lass was having a great time zooming about on the water. Here she is just having tacked.

We had great weather, warm, nice breeze, beautiful sun, and just perfect conditions. We got home tired and happy. This is the life.

It was a grand day out.

James

(PS: For those that know their flags, you may have noticed they weren't the usual suspects. The flag in the heading photo is the Royal Australian Navy Ensign, flown from Young Endeavour. And the centre flag on Enterprize in the last photo is the flag of Victoria, not Australia.)