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 June 20th: Wynyard to Lilydale (Melbourne)
Flying over Bass Strait It was still very cloudy. Wynyard was overcast but, as we to our relief found out shortly after take-off, the waters of Bass Strait were only covered by scattered alto clouds. To avoid active military airspace east of Devonport and because the weather was much more pleasant over the ocean, we decided to track directly for Flinders Island. We can confirm what Peter from Warrnambool had told us earlier - the engine of an aircraft in fact DOES sound different, when flying over water :-).

Flinders Island and King Island couldn't be more different. Where King Island is completely flat, Flinders has mountains. Lot's of mountains plus a bunch of tiny islands around it. In fact there are little islands (actually more like rocks sticking out of the water) all the way back to the mainland. Nothing you could land on with a fixed wing aircraft though.

Wilsons Promontory National Park At Wilsons Promontory we had mainland under us again and canceled our SKED's (a regular / scheduled radio call to the Search & Rescue Watch to ensure that everything is going all right when flying over water).

Philip Island We had considered landing on Philip Island and stay there for one night, but as Linda had watched the Philip Island penguins going ashore earlier and as I was quite happy with the penguins I had seen on King Island, we decided to continue to Lilydale.

Melbourne city Since we were early, we requested clearance to do an orbit of the city - it was almost on the route to Lilydale anyway. Lilydale is located a bit outside Melbourne, but it doesn't have a landing or parking fee and it is clear of controlled airspace. The grass strip was a bit hard to find - I'm sure we would have had our problems if we hadn't had a GPS telling us exactly where it was.

Roger Merridew welcomed us and helped refueling and parking the plane. David, one of Rogers instructors, made a little detour on his way home to drop us of at Lilydale train station.

As Kerry, our Melbourne host, first would get home from her hospital shift at about 10:30 p.m. we put our luggage in a locker at Spencer station and began to investigate the city. First stop was the Crown entertainment centre. Jerry Lewis was having a show there that night, but it was a bit expensive and hence we decided to go to see a movie instead. Klaus had the brilliant idea of going to the casino first to win the money for the movie tickets. By the time he had achieved this, it was too late for the movies (as we found out after walking around the city for about an hour and a half in search of a cinema). So we returned to the casino and won another $75.