First stop, a 90-minute drive to Torquay and "Tiger Moth World". The Tiger Moth was introduced in the 1930's first for the RAF in the UK and then the RAAF here in the 1940's. Randy Walsh has been flying these machines for many a year and today he took me out for a flight! These planes have no comfort .... except for natural air-conditioning (!)
OK - just to say, it's 8 pm and it's raining so hard and the clouds so dark, it looks like the end of the world out there ...!
The flight was not that long as a HUGE rain cloud was tracking us but we had enough from the cockpit and Tim in another plane to make the whole piece look very cool.
From there we headed back to the city and to Charcoal Lane - one of the finest restaurants in Melbourne. Charcoal Lane (in Fitzroy) is unique as it's owned by a charity that works with Aboriginal and disadvantaged people and trains them to be chefs ... the difference here compared to similar schemes is that this one works! The food is fabulous and the trainees love what they do and strive to become great chefs.
The cuisine is modern Australian using traditional/indigenous produce.
With head chef - Damien Styles - I got to help prepare a kangaroo dish ... not only do these animals look good, they taste good too!
We then went for a drive to get Melbourne shots and sadly had to say farewell to our guide Tony ... he's been VERY good to us ...
Tomorrow, it's "hotel filming day" ... unless the world ends tonight!
Song of the Day: Don't Get Me Wrong - The Pretenders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Bj8wrXslk
Weather: One minute - good ... next minute - bad ... one minute - good ... etc etc
James "Biggles" Fulcher
With Tiger the friendly Kitten
THE Tiger Moth
With Randy Walsh
Chef Damien Styles
Wine .. yum!
Driver/guide/friend - Tony Poletto
Melbourne skyline
