I went up in a little acrobatic airplane last Sunday. It was my birthday gift from Liz. It was awesome!! It moved very fast, we did loops and rolls. We hit up to 4.5 Gs! Here's a few pictures from my experience.






The controls while we are up in the air. You can see we were going about 150 knots then (we hit 180 at our max). It's 1.8 knots to 1 km/h so that means we went up to 350 km/h. YeeHa!
The little airport on approach.
Coming in for a landing now.

My parents came to visit me. So after a month cruise and few weeks touring the eastern seaboard of Australia they made it to Perth and myself for a 12 day visit.

They arrived Late Friday Oct 26th. Spent the next day just catching up and doing some laundry and some of their internet.

Left the Sunday to go down south and the first stop was a steam train ride, my dad found one and this was their last weekend since they don't run during summer with the high danger of brushfires.
Mom and me by some flowers.

Then we drove onto Busselton where we spent the night. Next morning mom and dad went for a walk on the 2km jetty while I got gas and some groceries. Then off to the peninsula to see a lighthouse (below) and we could see whales just off the shore, about half a dozen.
Spent the night in Margaret River after stopping by the chocolate factory, cheese factory and a winery. That was a lot of good tasting. Next day went to visit an underground cave. We chose lake cave but their was about 4-5 you could go to.
Here's a picture of us walking down to the tour guide waiting at the bottom.
The steep stairs down into the cave itself.
Cave pictures, and you can see some of the neat reflection off the water (lake) inside.


Then we drove onto Pemberton where my dad and myself were going to climb the old fire ranger tree which is 70m high. Except as we got to the 25m platform it started to rain fairly hard so we turned back down. Oh well. It has a great view looking over the forest, I did it last year with my friend John.
Then we found a vineyard my dad HAD to stop at. We bought a couple bottles of red to drink later on.
A little lookout near this waterfalls we found.
They have some BIG BIG trees down there.
Slept in Walpole so we could do the tree top walk the next day. Basically a big metal suspension bridge that goes through the canopy. Even though very secure mom still had to hold the railings the entire time.




Then we went onto Albany where we had lunch and went to see the cliffs by the oceans edge. After Albany we drove back to Perth via the Stirling Range, a nice little set of mountains. My dad and I climbed Bluff Knoll (little too much for mom) which is the highest, it was just over 1000m high. Of course the car park we started from was already part was up, maybe 1/3 of the way.
Looking down at the car park part way up.
Looking to neighbouring mountains on top.
View of the car park where we started and the road to it from the very top.
Myself after conquering the Bluff.
Got back to Perth very late, about midnight, had to drive slower in case a Kangaroo jumped out, (I did see a few). Drove them to the apt I got for them the next day and had a nice dinner out (I think we ate out for dinner almost everyday that they were here). Friday we went to Rottenest island just off of Perth and explored it. Hre are a few pictures I took: (would have been nicer more into summer when warmer to snorkel)
Lots of people bring or rent bikes to get around. The island is only 20km long, actually I think it was less than that.


These little furry guys are called Quokkas. They have no predators on the island and have flourished, there's about 100,000 of them now.

On the Sunday walked down to the foreshore to watch the Redbull Air Race. We found a spot in the shade since it was about 30C. We could still see the planes and also the jumbo screen which was nice.

Mom and me.

Those are the pylons they have to fly through.


They left on Wed Nov 7th for the train ride across the country. I saw their sleeper car and seemed nice. Had dinner out for mom's birthday while she was here. Also had dinner with Liz's parents, it went well but little nervousness since first time getting a girlfriends parents to meet.

They spent 3 days on the train to get to Sydney then went up into the Blue mountains for a few days. They should be back in Sydney now and moving on to Melbourne in the next couple days for their last stop of their journey over here. I think they had a great time!!

Walked around Kings Park during the flower festival, here's a picture of Liz and I.

We went to the Snow Patrol concert, it was part of her birthday gift. Great band and good show!! This pictures are bad but what do you expect at a concert.