The House(s) of Fran_mart

 A few snaps from the display by the RAAF Roulettes.  We knew they were just about due when we got there, as a friend had a call from a contact in Lakes to say they had just overflown there (about 150 km straight line).

 On 8 January Frances was doing the dishes when a couple of hot air balloons when by the window, heading for Albert Park.  By the time I got to the Wintergarden they were over the Park. The Chadstone was dropping. And the 711 gradually joined it. After that Frances went to her room and found Fawkner Park full of Balloons. When we got out the back door we found one right by the path. Pulling this rope drops the canopy! Going further in to the Park found the balloons all over the ground. There was much fiddling about to fold and flatten the canopies.  They then get formed into a sausage and stuffed in a big bag. The basket is winched into a trailer ...  .. and the trailer jam was sorted. Not balloons but we though this fig tree growing on a palm tree, at Toorak Rd was interesting!

We have come to Melbourne for a couple of weeks.  We left home at 0635 as planned .  The drive up was 'interesting' with massive numbers of road maggots - wide white things that crawl slowly up the road - from Bairnsdale to about Dandenong.   We did discuss how people in the inner areas parked these behemoths given that many properties don't even have an off-road car park.  Noting there they stopped being seen I think the answer must be that if you live in the inner areas you avoid the larvae. We passed through Bairnsdale at about 0900 hrs and noted the temperature was 35C.  We were expecting hot but that was a tad earlier that we had thought.  It dropped temporarily to 33C a bit later in the drive. I was able to get a photo of the painted water tanks just (about 1.3 km( East of Stratford). The temperature climbed slowly as we  went along, with the highest I saw being 39C somewhere around Pakenham.  When we got into our apartment (1240hrs) th...