A day out on my own

Since Lenise was working all weekend, I decided to go out by myself today, to enjoy the beautiful autumn day, and get to know the city a bit better. First I took our new car out for a drive to the Dandenong ranges, out on the outskirts of Melbourne, to see if the little Swift could handle the hills.. The view from the top was pretty awesome; you could see all the way across the Yarra Valley towards the Great Dividing range! I noticed there was a catchment dam nearby (as a Dutchman I have an innate fascinatination for dykes and dams alike), so I decided to go and have a closer look. It looked pretty full, and since water is such a precious commodity here, I kept my finger ready just in case!
After that I went to the top of Mount Dandenong, which at 650 meters is mighty high to me, to get a view of the city. From this point you really get a sense of the actual size of the city, since the mountain is actually right on the edge of the outer suburbs, and the center of town seems mighty far away!

After enjoying the view for a while, I decided to head back home and to have some lunch, and decide what I was going to do the rest of the day..
When I got out of the car at home, I could hear the racecars practising at Albert Park, so I thought it might be an idea to head over to the park and see what's going on at the Australian Grand Prix!

When I arrived at Albert Park, there was an airshow of stuntplanes going on, but it didn't take long before some F1 cars came down the track on some practice laps. Pretty noisy, to say the least!! And that was at a slow corner.. so I decided to get some stylisch earplugs for when the race got underway. In the meantime I had a look around the park, which looked great with the lake in the middle and the skyline in the background.

When the race got underway I walked around the track, to see the action at some different point, and the whole spectacle was pretty impressive; very fast and loud, with plenty of entertainment on the side as well, in fact, the whole thing had a very festival-like atmosphere to it. So although you can't really see everything that's going on (unless you go see one of the giant TV screens), the atmosphere definitely makes it worth a visit!
Until next week's post!