On Sunday 26th October I drove down to Point Cook to checkout Australia's newest Warbird, the F4U-5N Corsair VH-NII, which was scheduled to put on a handling display in the afternoon as part of the RAAF Museum's weekend interactive program. The Corsair, owned by Graham Hosking's, was piloted by Peter Clements who flew it down from Darwin over two days prior to the weekend, transiting via Alice Springs and Cowra before arriving at Point Cook.
Peter Clements put the aircraft through its paces demonstrating its amazing speed and handling and displayed it to great affect. It was a sight and sound that had to be witnessed to be fully appreciated. The Corsair is now based at Tyabb and should become a regular sight on the Australian Warbird display circuit.
Following on from the weekend at Point Cook my wife and I then traveled up to Maldon mid-week to experience the delights of the Victorian Goldfields Railway. The steam train ride takes 45 minutes from Maldon to Castlemaine - one way - and travels through some beautiful countryside. Upon return to Maldon we then took the short drive to Porcupine Flat, which is located on the Bendigo-Maldon Road, to checkout the old gold mining dredge and drag-line crane, which are located both in and alongside the old dam and date from the early 1950's. Despite there being warning signs advising people not to climb on the crane, these did not deter me in the least from exploring this amazing behemoth.
At the wife's insistence a return journey to Castlemaine was then required the following weekend, as she needed to visit the local patchwork store in order to purchase yet more fabric for some of her many ongoing projects. Whilst she was happy doing this I went off exploring and came across a yard at the rear of a garage, which seemed to contain a lot of old construction and transport machinery, hidden amongst a large number of trees.
Little did I realise what I'd actually stumbled across at the time and it was like entering an Aladin's Cave, with every step revealing yet another old vehicle in a state of decay but not beyond the realms of recovery. Most of the commercial vehicles carried the name of 'S.Caddy of Castlemaine' on their sides and this was obviously their previous owner. This was an amazing find and just goes to show what is still out there when you're prepared to look just that little bit further.
