The Philippine Attack On Port Stephens! (Part 2)

F1 11 on display at 'Fighter World'!

Twas a wet departure from Nobbys. We new it would be heavy, even the line up of coal ships offshore had totally disappeared not five minutes earlier.
It has mostly stopped by the time we passed over the Stockton Bridge and continued to our next stop, an unplanned visit to 'Fighter World' at the Williamtown RAAF base.
Always wanted to visit here and finally had the opportunity, thanks to many excited kids, to do it.

With Annabelle posing as my wife, or was it me as her husband, we managed to take advantage of the family discount. With all the kids in tow, I am sure the sales guy must have thought we were never off the nest ;-)

The museum has displays of old fightercraft (well duh), photos, models. You can sit in real cockpits, look at current restoration projects and even listen to transmissions while up on the viewing platform watching fighter craft in operation.
Who could ever get sick of seeing fighter craft screaming by. Truly AWESOME stuff.

'Fighter World' from the inside viewing deck!

Alas, at the risk of boring those who didn't come in, we soon left and headed further north towards Fingal Bay, our home for the next few days. It was at this time we realised how wise our recent GPS purchase was :-)

Chopper taking off from Williamtown - taken from viewing deck!

Not much was done the first afternoon besides a hurried construction of the tents before the evenings deluge of rain and a few runs up to the shops in Nelson and Shoal Bays to fulfill every spousal request (and they have a lot of them).
Think it was spaghgetti again for dinner before an early night (we hadn't discovered the holiday parks entertainment part as yet).

Looking for some breakfast!

24-04-2008

The brightness in the distant clouds gave false hope for a dry day!

Up at 8am after a long night of torrential rain, strong winds and tent flooding. Earlier feeling of having been blown back to Newcastle were proved wrong upon when we left the tent and found the Gina and Annabelle divisions of our extended family still intact.

It was breakfast time again and, hopefully, the promised bacon and eggs that were supposed to be brought forth yesterday.
SPAGHETTI AGAIN!! Aggghhhhhhh! You can't eat spaghetti for every meal, I mean, you can only do that with adobo.
Alas much whinging did the trick and finally the bacon and eggs came forth and again faces were suitably gorged.

Munch, Munch, Munch, Burp!

With dark cloud and endless rain seeming the order of the day we all decided to head to Nelson Bay shops to see how much we could be ripped off in an overpriced tourist trap.
Financial damage appeared minimal, with mostly postcards and stamps purchased, followed by another face gorging at "John Dorys Fish Shop'. Nice calamari but extremely small and overpriced compared to the offerings at BKK in Eastlakes.
Twas in a small mall at Nelson Bay that we bumped into the first person from back home. A woman we regularly see around the traps. Sadly it was her who recommended yet another shopping centre, this being a huge one at Salamander Bay.
Shopping and Centre!!!! No two words cause more arousal in woman than these two. Instantly the cold hard dark cloud of reality that much time would be spent there arose.
AGGhhhhhh god - we have shops at home. Like what are you going to find in Salamander Bay K-Mart, Suzanne Grae, Woolworths, McDonalds etc etc that you are not going to find at home.
What is it about woman and shops??????

Hmmmmm anyway, it was to be another 24 hours before we had to endure that torture and from here we headed back to Fingal Bay.

To be continued!